News Media's Anti-Palestine Narrative
After Hamas attacks earlier this week, news media has been working overtime to bury Israeli violence against Palestinians
In the early morning of October 7th, the world was taken by surprise when Hamas launched missiles into Israel. This began what the group deemed “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” in retaliation for Israel’s repeated raids of the Al-Aqsa mosque, a sacred holy site in Palestine. This missile attack was followed by ground invasions of Hamas forces, in which hundreds of Israeli civilians were taken hostage.
It’s absolutely crucial to have a humanitarian approach to the victims of the horror that has erupted from this military counteroffensive, both Israeli and Palestinian. But for many, the conversation ends there. Violence is bad. Hamas has done violence. Israel, the aggrieved party, is responding. Case closed.
What’s left unsaid in this analysis is the violence that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians since 1948, especially in recent decades. According to the UN, 2023 is the deadliest year for Palestinians since they began tracking in 2006. In 2021, Israel bombed an Associated Press building in the Gaza. Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered by Israeli forces while reporting in Jenin. This location has a refugee camp which has been routinely targeted by Israel. The Al-Aqsa mosque faced repeated raids by Israel, subjecting worshippers to violence. According to Defence for Children International Palestine, Israeli forces have killed more than 2,300 Palestinian children since 2000. Israeli control over 2 million Gaza residents has been described as an “open-air prison.” Amnesty International has called Israel’s treatment of Palestinians apartheid.
Israel’s treatment of Palestine is a colonial relationship. It is a system built on, and perpetuated by, violence and subjugation. A violent system breeds more violence.
The Israeli government knows this, and has sponsored Hamas’ proliferation to control the opposition. “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation,” said Avner Cohen, who worked in religious affairs in Gaza for two decades, to the Wall Street Journal in 2009. This work was done to decrease the influence of secular Palestinian liberation movements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all but confirmed this, when it was reported that, in 2019, he said, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”
None of this information is present in the current news media discussion of the Palestinian counteroffensive. It likely never will be, as Western news media has done everything in its power to shift sympathy to Israel. Both subtly, and blatantly, they have erased all context for this attack, hoping consumers rely on pre-conceived notions to drown out any critical analysis.
CBC’s Cowardice
On Sunday, October 8, Rosie Barton covered the emerging conflict for CBC News.
CBC does not use the word Palestine in its reporting. Their guidelines around reporting on issues affecting Palestine are as follows: “There is no modern country of Palestine… So do not refer to Palestine or show a map with Palestine as a country.” When two CBC reporters signed an open-letter asking for fairer coverage of Palestine, they were told they were banned from reporting on the issue. In short, CBC’s bias is clear, but Rosemary Barton felt the need to make it clearer.
Barton introduced Mona Abuamara, a representative for the Palestinian Delegation to Canada. Abuamara began by saying she deplores the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life, then began to discuss the impact of Israeli bombing on Palestine. “We have had one family of 17 people killed in one of those bombings, and among them five children.”
When asked about meeting of the Arab League being called, Abuamara discussed coverage of Palestine from the Western perspective.
Everything that we’re seeing today or in the past few days and the past few months are symptoms of the root of the cause, which is occupation and apartheid. And I know that in Western media it is being covered live right now, unfortunately this reality has been there for the Palestinians for decades and we did not receive that coverage from Western media or condemnation from Western leaders.
Barton then moves to asking Abuamara if she is “concerned” that Hamas’ actions are hurting Palestinians’ goals to have “a peaceful life.”
Abuamara responds that Palestinians have not had a peaceful life despite appeals to the international community. “The only way to have a resolution is to hold Israel accountable for what happened,” she said before returning to discuss the root causes of the current conflict.
Barton refused to accept this answer, interrupting Abuamara to ask if she condones “what Hamas has done over the past 24 hours.”
“Listen, why is it the job of the occupied to condone or condemn or protect the security of its occupier?” Abuarama responded. She pointed to Netanyahu’s declaration of war then described Gaza as an open-air prison, once again contextualizing the latest attack.
Barton interrupted a second time to force the topic back to the dominant narrative. Here is a transcription of the exchange from this point on.
Barton: But I guess my point is that Israel does have a right to defend itself and there are now more than 600 people dead. So I wonder if Hamas has hurt the conversation that you want to have as Palestinians.
Abuamara: That’s the problem. When you say “Israel has the right to defend itself”, and that has been going on for so long-
Barton: Yep.
Abuamara: -even when atrocities have been happening to the Palestinians and then- do Palestinians have the right to defend themselves? And why not? If-if- that- that’s what we’re looking for, equality. When you come and say you’re against occupation somewhere else, Canada need to be consistent and the international community needs to be consistent that occupation needs to end no matter what. But-
Barton: Mo- Yeah-
Abuamara: -you can’t condone atrocities against people and then demand them to-
Barton: I’m going to leave it there. Mona Abuamara.
Abuamara: -be the peo-
Barton: I’m going to leave it there, I’m running out of time. Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate your perspective. Mona Abuamara, thank you.
The full interview can be found on Abuamara’s Facebook page, linked here. But I’ve attached the relevant clip, ripped from the FB video, on my TikTok below.
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This crucial context and perspective was cut short by Barton and the CBC, who single-mindedly pushed Abuamara to condemn Hamas. Any culpability by Israel for this escalation in war was discarded wholesale, and when this narrative was challenged, Barton shut it down almost immediately. This is par-for-the-course for CBC’s coverage of Palestine, but it is disgraceful nonetheless.
The BBC Failure
A similar situation played out when Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, appeared on BBC News on the same day.
We have recognized Israel. We have committed to negotiations of non-violence. We have committed to international law and resolutions. Israel was supposed to do one thing: end its occupation and stop its colonial settlement expansion. It did not do this for once. All the successive governments and the international community were supposed to provide accountability and guarantees. The US-led international community did not do so.
The host (who I couldn’t find the name of, other than “Louis”) went back to the same line of questioning that Barton returned to, asking Zomlot if he supported Hamas’ attack. Zomlot refused to condemn Hamas and made it clear that the group is not the Palestinian government, then attempted to keep the conversation on track. A transcription of Zomlot’s critique of news media framing during the interview follows.
Host: You just condemned Israel for killing civilians, and you won’t condemn Hamas for killing civilians.
Zomlot: How many times you have interviewed Israel officials, Louis? Hundreds of times. Hundreds of times. How many times Israel have committed war crimes, right, live on your own cameras? Do you start by asking them to condemn themselves? Have you? You don’t. You don’t. No, no, I’ll answer that question, you don’t. You know why I refuse to answer this question? Because I refuse the premise of it. Because at the very heart of it is misrepresentaiton of the whole thing. Because it’s the Palestinians that are always expected to condemn themselves. I mean, come on, this is a political topic. We have been denied our rights for a long time. So this is the wrong starting point. The right starting point is to focus on the root causes. It’s to try and get out of this extreme dark tunnel, as opposed to this business-
Host: How- How- How-
Zomlot: -by BBC and the mainstream media. For 75 years you bring us here whenever there are Israelis who are killed. Did you bring me here when many Palestinians in the West Bank [were killed], more than 200 over the last few months? Do you invite me when there are such Israeli provocations in Jerusalem and elsewhere? Because Israel-What Israelis have seen, which we have started by saying tragic, the last 48 hours, the Palestinians see every day for the last 78- uh 50, 50 years. You know the situation in Gaza, you’ve just described it! This is the biggest open air prison. Those people, two million, have been taken hostage by Israel for the last 16 years. So I’m saying this, just to say Louis, perhaps this is about time we abandon this rhetoric, very dangerous, this framework, and we start giving people the real ugly truth sometimes.
The BBC host let Zomlot speak far more than Barton allowed Abuamara, but their arguments were the same: when Israel faces attack, Palestinians are brought on and expected to denounce the attackers. But when Israelis attack Palestine, they refuse to hold Israel to the same standard.
It’s important to note how much more against this framing that the CBC was in comparison to the BBC.
Ingrained in the Ecosystem
There were many more incidents other than these two. CTV Ottawa ran a segment with retired Maj.-Gen David Fraser, military analyst for CTV, titled “At least 70 killed in Israel, 198 dead in Gaza.” According to this framing, Israeli victims were killed in cold blood, while almost two hundred people in Gaza presumably suffered a heart-attack for no reason. Fraser lamented the consequences for the “people of the Gaza strip,” but no mention was made of Israel’s targeting of civilians.
But it’s important to note that this Western framing of Israel’s colonialism in news media is reflective of the positions of our governments. In Canada, politicians ranging the electoral political spectrum and levels of government almost unanimously denounced pro-Palestine demonstrations. This included, but is not limited to, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the cross-country protests, framing them as demonstrations “in support of Hamas’ attacks on Israel.” These demonstrations were not “pro-Hamas,” and it’s likely that Trudeau and his government know this. When Reuters reported on the story, they asked the Prime Minister’s office to clarify this point.
“When asked if he made a distinction between pro-Palestinian protesters and demonstrators supporting Hamas, his office declined to comment.”
Every aspect of this conflict is tinted with a bias against Palestine. Defence minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel would impose “a complete siege on Gaza,” depriving 2 million people of electricity, food, water and fuel. Collective punishment is an unequivocal war crime, and Israel has imposed it with little to no pushback from Western authorities.
At time of writing, CBC News published an Associated Press article on this story, but they made sure to include Hamas’ intention to kill hostages alongside the Gaza siege in the headline.
Understanding the Conflict
You may have noticed earlier that I described Hamas’ attacks as a “counteroffensive.” That was intentional, as they should be framed exactly as such. It is an attack by a besieged militant entity against its colonial occupiers. While Hamas is not wholly representative of Palestine or its people, it is one of the main entities pushing back against Israel’s crimes.
To our imperialist governments, Israel is a needed ally in the region, and enjoys the benefits of this alliance. Therefore, while criticisms of Israel may be lobbied in limited ways in mainstream discourse, Palestinian grievances and responses to colonialist violence must be reduced to isolated incidents and decried as such.
Those who are uncharitable with any nuance will attempt to shame these explanations by raising the violence inflicted against Israelis. But bemoaning violence inflicted by the oppressed against civilians of the oppressing class, while ignoring all other context, serves colonialism. If we all agree that violence is bad, then the conversation should include the daily violence inflicted against Palestinians. Since it doesn’t, the motives can easily be parsed out.
Of course we should recognize the tragedy of civilian targets and kidnapping victims facing brutalization, that much is obvious. But if we do not recognize the brutality and horror that Israel inflicts on Palestinians on a daily basis, the horrors will continue. With this latest burst of violence, and the beginning stages of a war, our capitalist news media has shown their hand. They don’t want the horrors to stop.