By Najeeb Ullah & Yuan Hongli TWA ━━━ In the ongoing coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, it's evident that the Western media applies different standards when reporting on the actions of the involved parties. There's a noticeable trend of intense scrutiny directed at Israel, especially focusing on legitimizing the millinery actions of Israel . In contrast, the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance are often targeted as illegitimate, brutal and anti humanity. This discrepancy becomes even more apparent when you look at how , Palestinian civilians, academics, politicians, and representatives of the Palestinian Authority face questions like “Will you condemn HAMAS” while never ask the questions like, "Will you condemn Benjamin Netanyahu’s siege and mass punishment of the civilian population of Gaza?" This biased line of questioning is particularly evident in recent reports from major Western news outlets. The language used to depict Israeli military actions is markedly different from that used to describe actions taken by Hamas. This nuanced narrative has the potential to shape public opinion and influence policy decisions. It raises important questions about the fairness and balance in western media coverage of the conflict.

Journalistic practice that presents Palestinians as less than human makes their killing more acceptable indirectly.

According to Işın Eliçin a senior journalist work with many prominent news organization including CNN & BBC from more than 2 decades argued that: On the BBC and all the other Western channels I could watch, the anchors always asked Palestinians, Palestinian civilians, academics, politicians, representatives of the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, whether they condemned Hamas as their first question. Yet no Israeli who appeared on the air was asked, “Will you condemn Benjamin Netanyahu’s siege and mass punishment of the civilian population of Gaza?” Of course, such a question is legitimate and can be asked: Do you condemn the killing of women and children, regardless of race, religion or which side they are on? But even with such a formulation, it is doubtful that Israelis and Palestinians who appear on the air will be treated equally. Not only what Israel did physically in Gaza & west bank , but the non-legitimate hate speech from the Israeli side became discourse in the news but mostly the western media prioritize its coverage, & if somehow they cover, the statements were presented in a normalized tone. By looking at the CNN latest report published 3 days ago the report stated as “Israel believes that it has killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas militant in its intense campaign to eliminate the armed group from the Gaza Strip, a ratio an IDF spokesperson described to CNN Monday as “tremendously positive.” Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, set the tone as he spoke about how far to assign guilt for the worst single atrocity against Jews in his country’s history. “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime,” said Herzog. In different ways, the sentiment that the Palestinians are collectively responsible for the actions of Hamas in killing about 1,300 Israelis and abduction of 199 – and therefore deserve what is coming to them – has been echoed far beyond Israel’s borders. In the US, Senator Lindsey Graham called for the wholesale destruction of Gaza. “We are in a religious war here. I’m with Israel. Do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself. Level the place,” he told Fox News.

A cartoon published by a digital journalism monitor organization

In the UK, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons, took a different tack in generalizing guilt by writing that “much of Muslim culture is in the grip of a death cult that sacralizes bloodshed” before deleting his tweet after a backlash. Ariel Kallner, a member of the Israeli parliament for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, had the answer. He demanded a repeat of the mass expulsion of Arabs in 1948 known to Palestinians as the Nakba or Catastrophe. “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948,” he said. It remains to be seen if that is Israel’s plan after it ordered more than one million people to get out of northern Gaza as the military prepares further attacks in addition to the bombing and shelling that has already killed 2,700 Palestinians, including 700 children. But the dehumanizing language spilling out of Israel and from some of its supporters abroad is of a type heard at other times and places that helped create a climate in which terrible crimes take place. But no one asked the Israeli cause supporters : do you condemn these statements that explicitly violate basic human rights , and are considered as a serious level of hate & criminal speech. International humanitarian law prohibits punishing people for acts they did not commit. Herzog says that civilians will also be punished for the actions of Hamas. Almost half of the people in Gaza are children, so it is they who will be punished for the actions of adult combatants. International law is very clear on this. Collective punishment is against the law. It becomes normal for a government, Israel, its Prime Minister Netanyahu or its Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, to claim that they are fighting “against animal people” and to ask for support to leave no stone unturned in Gaza to “destroy everything”, partly to cover up their own fatal mistakes and shame, by inflicting unprecedented violence on a largely defenseless and imprisoned population, in this context committing war crimes. Behind this double-standard approach is a false equalization or “equidistance” logic that hides the huge power asymmetry between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people. But they are not equal. And the Western media is obsessed with blaming the victim, the occupied, the colonized, the besieged. While Palestinians are asked to condemn alleged crimes committed by other Palestinians, not even a politician who is a member of Israel’s ruling party is asked to condemn alleged crimes committed by the Israeli government. In this context, you can watch or read here how Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority’s (not Hamas, the Fatah representative) Ambassador to Britain, challenged BBC presenter Lewis Vaughan Jones and the channel’s double standards when he questioned him from Israel’s point of view and insisted on condemning Hamas.

An Israeli soldier videoed shooting a civilian in the West Bank is described in a CNN headline as a “man in military fatigues” rather than a member of the IDF

Husam Zomlot, criticized the network's unequal treatment of Israeli and Palestinian representatives. Zomlot pointed out that he was rarely invited to comment on attacks against Palestinians but was consistently called upon to discuss incidents involving Israelis. The Palestinian diplomat rejected the premise of a question about condemning Hamas, emphasizing the historical misrepresentation of the situation and the unequal expectations placed on Palestinians. Zomlot highlighted the ongoing hardships faced by Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, and urged a shift from rhetoric that perpetuates a dangerous framework to a more truthful understanding of the complex situation. “You only invite us here when Israelis are killed. Did you invite me when more than 200 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in the last two months? Did you invite me when there were Israeli provocations in Jerusalem or elsewhere? We started by saying that what the Israelis have experienced in the last 48 hours is tragic. This is what Palestinians have been going through every day for the last 50 years. You know the situation in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison. 2 million people living there have been held hostage by Israel for 16 years. So, Lewis, maybe it’s time to stop framing the issue in this way, to abandon this dangerous rhetoric and to tell people the ugly truth.” Zomlot saided. The statement on October 7 by the US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson condemned the "unprovoked" attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians. The use of the term "unprovoked" is considered a smokescreen, as it fails to acknowledge actions such as the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by settlers on October 5, the killing of 248 Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers from January 1 to October 4 of that year, and the long-standing denial of Palestinians' human rights and expulsion from their land. The critique suggests a selective framing of events in media reporting. At the weekend, the BBC described demonstrations across the UK to criticise Israeli government policies and show solidarity and support for the Palestinians as “demonstrations in support of Hamas”. Since Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by the US, UK and EU, this is a subtle way of criminalizing the demonstrations. Fortunately, democracy works well in the UK and people can get results when they criticise an institution set up to broadcast in the public interest with money from their own pockets. The BBC was forced to admit , after receiving rebuttals and complaints, that its portrayal of the demonstrations as “support for Hamas” “did not reflect the truth” and “misled viewers” CNN, BBC, and DW etc , in reporting on the casualties in Gaza and Israel, often use distinct language. They describe deaths in Gaza, resulting from Israeli actions, as "X number of civilians were 'died' due to the Israeli ground offensive or bombardment." In contrast, when reporting on Israelis killed in Hamas attacks on October 7, they use phrases like "X number of Israeli citizens were 'killed' brutally by the Hamas terror attack." The use of "died" for one group and "killed brutally" for the other creates a semantic distinction. From a humanistic perspective both groups are human beings with no biological differences, but the media organizations make varied word choices in describing them . . Let us underline, these are not just words; they are the words of decision-makers, and they determine policies and actions. (Could it be that they do not know how close they are to the language used by the Nazi regime to demonize Jews in preparation for the Holocaust?) Such language, which is merely quoted by journalists without being challenged or questioned, opens the door to crimes against humanity and serves to legitimize genocide. For Washington and other Western capitals to ignore the policy impact of this kind of rhetoric is to give Israel license to do whatever it wants. BBC radio’s Mishal Husain did his journalistic duty well when, at the cost of breaking with the institution’s general line, he held the UK Defense Secretary to account for giving Israel a carte blanche: Another concept that has been used to cover up war crimes is the “right of self-defence”, which the Palestinians have been denied. Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy’s response to the presenter who argued that Israel was exercising its “right of self-defence” against terrorists by depriving 2,000,000 people in Gaza of their basic needs and by continuously bombarding a narrow area where it is almost impossible to distinguish between civilians and non-civilians is instructive: “Do you really say this without blushing? Do you really think that it is possible to eradicate a terrorist organisation that is embedded in a population deprived of its most basic rights by military action? Has such a thing ever been seen in history? Al Jazeera commentator Marwan Bishara criticised the double standards of US and European leaders on the “right of self-defence”: “In the eyes of the West, Israel seems to have the ‘right’ to defend its own people, but the Palestinians have no right to defend themselves, as if they were the people of a lesser god! Even Israel seems to have the right to defend and even expand its occupation and apartheid regime, but the Palestinians have no right to express their frustrations or fight for freedom and justice after seventy years of dispossession, oppression and siege. According to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, ‘Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off water and electricity to men, women and children… is an act of terrorism.’ But for Israel to do the same against the Palestinians in Gaza is self-defence! This is the epitome of hypocrisy and double standards.” Bishara makes another important warning that I have not yet heard from commentators on BBC broadcasts: “The hysterical comparisons between Hamas’ Saturday attacks and 9/11 are reckless and extremely dangerous because they serve to lay the groundwork for a wider war, as we witnessed before the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretences. Such comparisons help to demonise Palestinian leaders and dehumanise the Palestinian people, paving the way for a genocidal war that will start from Gaza. Of course demonising political leaders is an ugly policy, but dehumanising an entire people is racism pure and simple.” Media outlets have consistently reinforced the narrative presented by the United States and Israel when reporting on Palestinian deaths. The Western media's approach to health statistics from Gaza changed notably after Israel faced accusations of bombing a hospital there. While English-speaking journalists once straightforwardly referenced reports from the "Palestinian health ministry in Gaza," adhering to its official name for years, a shift occurred after the October 17 attack on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. Subsequently, media outlets started portraying the ministry as an extension of the rebel force Hamas. The stakes are high, with the health ministry reporting over 17,177 Palestinian deaths, nearly half a percent of Gaza’s population, including thousands of children. Despite U.S. officials acknowledging the accuracy of these numbers, the health ministry's credibility has suffered. Israeli forces targeted Al-Shifa Hospital, the ministry's headquarters, marking it as a military target. Evacuations ensued, hindering the ministry's ability to update the death toll amid Israeli attacks, communication blackouts, and a high number of casualties. Israeli and U.S. efforts to shift the narrative have succeeded, with descriptors like "Hamas-run" now commonly used for the health ministry, a stark change from the previous neutral references.