Items worth reading to get the real perspective on current events ......... July 2024

https://www.medialens.org/2024/aligned-with-israels-propaganda-strategy-bbc-correspondent-challenges-the-bbc-director-general/

 

Aligned With Israel’s Propaganda Strategy’: BBC Correspondent Challenges the BBC Director General

 Last November, we reported on an incisive and courageous email that had been sent on 24 October 2023 to Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director General, by Rami Ruhayem, a Beirut-based BBC correspondent. Basing his arguments on considerable evidence and rational analysis, Ruhayem was highly critical of the BBC’s pro-Israel coverage of Gaza since the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023.

A former journalist for the Associated Press, Ruhayem has worked as a journalist and producer for BBC Arabic and the BBC World Service since 2005. He wrote:

‘Words like “massacre”, “slaughter”, and “atrocities” are being used—prominently—in reference to actions by Hamas, but hardly, if at all, in reference to actions by Israel.

‘When the BBC uses such language selectively, with the standard of selection being the identity of the perpetrators/victims, the BBC is making a statement—albeit implicit. It implies that the lives of one group of people are more valuable than the lives of another.’ (Our emphasis)

As we pointed out at the time, this is extremely serious. The state-mandated BBC News organisation is essentially channelling Israeli propaganda that excuses its war crimes while demonising Israel’s victims, the Palestinian people.

Similar points were made in a 2,300-word letter sent in November 2023 to Al Jazeera by eight BBC journalists who, fearing reprisals, requested anonymity. They accused the BBC of:

‘failing to tell the story of the Israel-Palestine conflict accurately, investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in coverage.’

They said that the BBC is guilty of a ‘double standard in how civilians are seen’, given that it is ‘unflinching’ in its reporting of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine..............

 

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https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-failing-empire-so-blind-cheer-netanyahu-and-his-genocide

 

Only a failing US empire would be so blind as to cheer Netanyahu and his genocide

Jonathan Cook

26 July 2024 09:02 BST | Last update: 7 hours 20 mins ago

Every empire falls. Its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become

 

There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives. 

That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States. 

On Wednesday, Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and cheered as he slowly made his way - hailed at every step as a conquering hero - to the podium of the US Congress. 

This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter - so far - of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble. 

It was the same Netanyahu who levelled a strip of territory - originally home to 2.3 million Palestinians - that is expected to take 80 years to rebuild, at a cost of at least $50bn...............

 

 

 

 

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https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2024/07/24/the-uncounted-hundreds-of-thousands-of-palestinians-in-gaza-being-killed-by-israel/

The uncounted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza being killed by Israel

 

-by Eva Karene Bartlett
*(blog title updated from original published; blog version slightly longer)

Earlier this month, the Lancet published an article estimating that the total number of Palestinian civilian deaths caused directly and indirectly by Israeli attacks since October 2023 could be nearly five times higher than the official death toll, and could reach “up to 186 000 or even more.” 

It noted that “this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.” 

According to the piece, the latest available count of Palestinians killed – 37,396 – is far too low, based on the fact that it is still unknown how many more lie under the rubble, how many are missing but not accounted for among the dead, and how many will perish due to starvation, dehydration, or diseases.

“Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases,” it noted.

However, even this Lancet estimate of nearly 200,000 dead might be only half the actual number of Palestinians killed, according to some counts...............