JOURNALISM is something of a sacred cow to the West – in principle at least, if not in practice. Certainly, while we idolise historical journalism at its best through biopics such as Spotlight or the more recent dives into Prince Andrew’s dynasty-ending interview with Emily Maitlis, the day-to-day reality of British journalism often looks closer to someone from The Sun scrambling through the bins of the latest minority enemy du jour.
Still, for all the gutter tabloidism of the UK press, there is the occasional piece of blindingly brilliant reporting that calls to the foundations of journalism of speaking truth to power regardless of the professional consequences.
Maybe it is in these moments that we overlook the column inches dedicated to falsehoods about children identifying as cats, or racist Enoch Powell-style screeds, in favour of seeing journalism as the best version of itself.
However, if anything has highlighted the disparity between what British journalism is and what we collectively believe it aspires to be, it has been the coverage of the ongoing occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people at the hands of the terrorist Israeli state.
For decades, the British press has painted Israel as a poor victim of circumstance, its bloodlust justified through high-profile opinion pieces and a political lens that would reduce February’s flour massacre – when Israeli occupying forces opened fire on Palestinians seeking food from aid trucks, killing more than 100 and injuring 760 more – to a headline about a “Gaza aid truck disaster” where the instigators are mysteriously absent from the opening paragraph.
One simple reason for this is racism. There is a thread of bigotry that runs through the British press from the Daily Mail’s front pages cheering on the fascist blackshirts 80 years ago to its contemporary musings on Britain’s Muslim population.
The second is that, for a long period, any criticism of Israel at all would raise accusations of antisemitism faster than it takes Keir Starmer to accept free clothes for his wife. But social media has broken that media consensus.
This is a new landscape for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his fascist hard-right compatriots in government. Where once Israel’s dominance of the media narrative was infamously unshakeable, now they stumble from misstep to misstep, unable to regain control.
Published misinformation has been pulled apart. The stage-managing of foreign reporters has been endlessly critiqued. And with little else to combat it, the occupying forces have turned from any pretence of being “the only democracy in the Middle East” to something more openly fascistichardline; via the deaths of so many journalists in Gaza, plus press censorship, and a seeming drive to escalate tensions. The raid on broadcaster Al Jazeera’s offices in the West Bank at the weekend was another sign of Israel coming to terms with having lost realising it is losing the information war.
Hot on the heels of attempts to ban social media site TikTok for giving the world access to the situation in the occupied territories, Israel has continued its long-running campaign against the Qatar-based news outlet by storming its offices to take the station off air for 45 days over vague security concerns.
Israel's apologists have been quick to find justification after justification for this attack on press freedom, but there is a sole image from the raid that I believe ends any pathetic defence of the occupying forces’ behaviour.
After storming the Al Jazeera offices and seizing documents and camera equipment, some soldiers were recorded making their way to a part of the offices which had a large poster of Shireen Abu Akleh (before) on display.
Shireen was a US-Palestinian journalist murdered by Israeli soldiers in 2022 while reporting on a raid on the Jenin refugee camp. She was wearing a blue press vest when she was shot by an Israeli soldier, then denied medical aid while lying in the street.
Israel at first denied involvement, blaming Palestinian militants for her death and fabricating evidence after the fact to fit this narrative. Later, it quietly admitted its forces were likely to be responsible, but refused to take part in any external investigation into what happened.
At Shireen’s funeral procession, occupying forces would again instigate violence. Israeli Defence Force soldiers beat pallbearers with truncheons and set off stun grenades, causing the coffin to fall into the street. Even after murdering her, IDF soldiers chose to desecrate her further still.
Presented with a picture of Shireen’s face in the West Bank offices of Al Jazeera, the news outlet that she had reported for across 25 years, the soldiers ripped it from the wall and shredded it. Tell me: what possible security risk did a poster of a murdered journalist pose to the IDF?
What possible reason could there have been for such an action, other than as an expression of the hatred and inhumanity these soldiers hold for Palestinians, and for any who challenge them?
But that’s the beauty of the vague nature of “security concerns”. It’s a phrase that can mean whatever you need it to, and justify whatever you want it to. And with Israel ripping out the means for accountability, who will challenge them?
Certainly not the United States, who have run cover for Israel’s bloodshed and violence. Nor the UK, whose Labour Party – in opposition and now in government – has spent the past 11 months equivocating over “humanitarian pauses”, while punishing any who spoke in favour of supporting a “ceasefire”.
That is the role of journalists, so it’s no surprise that Israel wants to keep foreign reporters at a distance, while crushing internal dissent through raids and bullets, making 2024 the most deadly year for journalists on record.
