The Orian 21 website presented its editorial with sentences from journalist Rafael Oriani’s resignation letter from the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, in which he said, protesting the way Gaza news was covered: “For 90 days, I did not understand…thousands of people are dying, maimed, and overwhelmed by a flood of violence.” ..So why all this astonishing caution in covering this war exercised by a large part of the European press, including La Repubblica?
The French website highlighted – in a joint editorial between its director, Alain Gresh, and its editor-in-chief, Sarah Qurera – the difference between the Western media’s handling of the war in Ukraine and the war on Gaza, as the Western media did not hesitate to condemn the “Russian invasion,” nor did it mention the name of the “Russian special operation.” “(the name that Moscow gives to the war) except as a mockery, while it adheres to the Israeli wording in describing the aggression on Gaza as a “war between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas),” as if two equal parties were fighting, or as if the victims were soldiers of the Al-Qassam Brigades. (The military wing of Hamas).
No matter how different the terminology used in newspapers is – according to the site – Hamas is often described as a “terrorist organization” (although only the European Union and the United States classify it as such), and this description absolves Israel in advance of all its crimes.
Phrases such as “war crime” and “genocide” are taboo, and the Israeli bombings in Gaza are called “explosions,” as if no one is responsible for them, with a tendency to quickly believe quotes and information provided by Israeli military and government officials, in exchange for caution and scrutiny in those statements. Received from the Palestinians, according to the editorial.
“According to Hamas”
The website’s editorial recalled the doubts that accompanied the death numbers announced by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which Western media still accompany with the phrase “according to Hamas.” It also recalled the Western press’s treatment of what is practiced on Palestinian hostages who are stripped of their clothes, humiliated, and tortured, as if the possibility of their belonging to Hamas justifies this state of exception.
On the other hand, false news spread after the 7th of last October about dismembering women, cutting off the heads of children, and burning them in ovens, because they were reported by Israeli officials, and when their lies were confirmed, no editorial team saw the need to admit the mistake of promoting Israeli propaganda, and hardly any. He is known for making blatant racist statements, which amount to incitement to hatred or violence against critics of the Israeli military.
At a time when Israel refuses the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, except for those it chooses, no one protested, and the professional solidarity to protest the assassination of 109 Palestinian journalists was minimal, even though this number was not recorded in any other modern war.
Even Reporters Without Borders only spoke in its annual report about the killing of “17 (Palestinian) journalists in the exercise of their duty,” even though “we acknowledge the gratitude in most of the photos that reach us of these Palestinian journalists” – according to the site – and even though some of them worked As “coordinators” for French journalists, they remain suspects in advance, because they are Palestinians.
Ethnic cleansing is a choice
The two writers drew attention to what they considered surreal discussions, asking, “Can we really discuss with calm and “normal” calm on radio and television stations proposals to deport the Palestinian population to the Congo, Rwanda, or Europe, without confirming that these are war crimes and crimes against humanity? Without saying that whoever utters it should be accused of calling for war crimes and crimes against humanity?
The Gaza Strip has become – according to the United Nations – “a place of death and uninhabitable,” where information is accumulating about the dead (more than 23 thousand) and the wounded (more than 58 thousand), the bombing of medical facilities, widespread executions and torture, the destruction of schools and universities, And the destruction of homes, to the point of creating a new term “house annihilation.”
The memorandum submitted by South Africa on December 29, 2023 to the International Court of Justice in The Hague is enough for the media to produce dozens of sensational news, and will help give the victims (and not just the victims of October 7) faces, names and identity, and to force Israel and the United States to – which it armed without fuss – to shoulder their responsibilities.
For the first time – as the article denounces – a genocide is taking place live, literally on certain Arab news channels or on social media networks, which did not happen in Rwanda or in Srebrenica, but news of this massacre easily disappears from the front pages and television news headlines in the West. To become merely secondary information.
The website advised France to avoid complicity in genocide by helping to stop it by suspending military cooperation with Israel, imposing sanctions on the French who participate in crimes in Gaza, suspending the right of settlers to enter the country, or even suspending the import of Israeli goods.