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Western Media Complicity in Zionist War Crimes Is Betrayal of Journalism 101

By Iqbal Jassat 

“The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them” – Edward Said 

Western media platforms who display a tenacity to hold onto a relationship of “baaskap” with consumers, are among many cowards within the journalist fraternity who regularly “sanitize” Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Baaskap” refers to a racist political philosophy prevalent during South African apartheid, akin to colonial “overlordship” – both exercising supremacy, power and control.

Ironically, despite the dominion it holds, Western media barons steer clear of antagonising the Jewish settler-colonial regime, Israel.

Many factors account for what can best be described as “cowardice” but the dominant one is overwhelming fear of intimidation and smears of “antisemitism”.

The bottom line is an unwritten “rule” which dictates the format of coverage related to Israel – an utter betrayal of the ethics of journalism. The erosion of trust and integrity stems from self-censorship which accounts for downplaying the brutal reality of the scale of horror inflicted by the Netanyahu regime in Gaza.

The pattern of framing is evident in the choice of soft language as well as the omission of critical context.

To critique Palestinian resistance marking October 7, 2023, without unpacking decades of Israel’s illegal occupation, the 17-year blockade of Gaza, and the legal status of the territory under international law, is grossly unfair, biased and misleading.

Indeed it can be argued that media reports which begin with October 7, framing Israel’s rationale as a “just war” or “counterterrorism” while omitting the historical context of occupation, blockade, and apartheid, would be tantamount to manufacturing consent for the genocide.

In the absence of crucial context, media platforms act as echo chambers of Israel’s Hasbara (propaganda). Reports and commentaries that flow from such crucial omissions, feed Zionist narratives that seek to justify the genocide.

On the issue of “soft language”, leaked internal memos from some mainstream media outlets reportedly instructed journalists to avoid or restrict terms like “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “occupied territories”.

There cannot be any justification for the use of terms such as “massacre” and “slaughter” to describe Palestinian retaliation, while neutral terms like “conflict” or “explosions” are used for widespread relentless Israeli bombings targeting Palestinian civilians.

It is well to remember that the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention urged Western media to stop using rhetoric that “actively shields” Israel from accountability for international crimes.

Equally important to recall that days after October 7, Israel’s president Herzog said it was not only militants but “an entire nation” that was responsible for the violence, and that Israel would fight “until we break their backbone.”

On October 9, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant referred to Palestinians as “human animals,” and said that Israeli forces were “acting accordingly.” He later told Israeli troops at the border “we will eliminate everything.”

On October 16, in a formal address to the Israeli Knesset, the regime’s chief warlord Netanyahu stated that the situation was “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” This quote was also posted on his official X account but later deleted.

As much as mainstream media in the West has contributed to manufacturing consent for the Gaza genocide and illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank, the dehumanization of Palestinians by Israeli politicians and soldiers alike remains largely unchallenged by it.

The recent debacle surrounding Financial Times’ describing the Zionist regime’s racist forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank as “annexation by law,” is evidence of sanitising ethnic-cleansing by violent military force that by all accounts is fundamentally criminal under international law.

There is no legal “mechanism” or “by-law” that can legitimise the unilateral seizure of occupied territory.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest legal body in the world, delivered a landmark ruling: Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful.

The ICJ concluded that Israel must end its occupation as rapidly as possible, cease all new settlement activity, and evacuate all settlers.

The soft coverage of destruction of lives and properties, allows the Netanyahu regime to dress it up as no more than bureaucratic civilian authority exercising administrative powers.

Media complicity yet again takes center stage by uncritically rehashing the regime’s devious framing, without interrogating facts which would reveal that such violations are designed to make annexation irreversible.

To permit such failure is to overlook UN reports from early 2026 confirming that this  expansion has forcibly displaced over 36,000 Palestinians amid rising settler violence, in addition to humanitarian agencies warning that these policies indicate a concerted effort of mass forcible transfer.

Omission of facts, context and choice of language allows a vacuum to exist which persists in reinforcing Zionist myths.

Iqbal Jassat

Executive Member

Media Review Network

Johannesburg

South Africa

Iqbal Jassat
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