It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Acknowledge That Palestinian Lives Have Value, Too
By stacy lee kong
Image: Shutterstock
Content warning: This newsletter contains descriptions of antisemitism, Islamophobia, sexual violence, war and death.
This week, I’ve been posting a lot about Israel and Palestine on Instagram, and as a result, I’ve been having a lot of conversations about why I’m taking the stance I do. So, while the rest of this newsletter is going to be media criticism, I want to start by talking a little bit about that. As I posted on Wednesday, I always try to be careful with my language (because… journalism), but I am extra careful when talking about this topic, both because I think precision is paramount considering the amount of misinformation flying around right now, and because I know the stakes are high. Antisemitism is on the rise around the world, and in Canada specifically. According to a Statistics Canada report using police-reported hate crime data, there were 487 hate crimes targeting the Jewish population in 2021, up 47% from the previous year. (The Statistics Canada report also noted hate crimes against Muslim communities increased by 71% to 144.) But, we know most hate crimes aren’t reported to police. In fact, according to the B’nai Brith, which has been tracking antisemitic incidents and hate crimes since 1982, there were 2,799 such incidents in 2021, which constitutes a 7.2% increase from the previous year. This is absolutely linked to populist politicians and alt-right influencers normalizing white supremacy (which is inherently antisemitic), and anyone who has been paying attention knows it’s only getting worse. In short, it’s a very scary time to be Jewish.
So, for me, being intentional looks like: acknowledging the terrifying and steady rise of antisemitism off the top, and noting that when there is upheaval between Israel and Palestine, antisemitism tends to spike. Being careful not to conflate the Israeli state and its political leaders with all Israeli citizens, much less all Jewish people. Doing my best to confirm the provenance of video and photography before sharing or referencing it—and when I make a mistake, which I do, changing my wording and issuing a clear correction.
It also means seeking out information from a variety of sources, and acknowledging that multiple things can be true at once. Since Saturday, when Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, launched an assault on Israel, more than 1,200 Israelis and at least 1,537 Palestinians have been killed. I believe that every single one of those lives is equally valuable, so, the most honest and accurate thing I can do when I talk about what’s happening is to take historical context into account, use the right words (including colonization and apartheid) and acknowledge the profound tragedy that civilians on both sides of this conflict, including literal babies, are the ones who suffer the most.
But, this week in particular, simply acknowledging Palestinians’ humanity, that they have been oppressed for decades and that they desire freedom has inevitably led to accusations of antisemitism. Please forgive the self-insertion here, because I’m not actually in this, but: I’m saying that from personal experience. Right now, media, politicians and public figures are rightfully acknowledging the pain and fear Israelis and Jewish people around the world are feeling—but they’re doing so in ways that demonize Palestinians, who are all being equated with Hamas. This isn’t fair; the Washington Institute, a pro-Israel think tank with a reputation for credible scholarship, recently found most Gazans (62%) “supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: ‘Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.’” So portraying all Palestinians as agents of Hamas is dishonest, not to mention Islamophobic.
But when I’ve pointed that out in IG posts that also (and in fact, first) acknowledged and condemned civilian killings and warned against antisemitism, the response has been accusations of being an antisemite myself, both in my DMs and the Friday Things comment section. Yesterday, someone even posted an IG Story labelling me a terrorist sympathizer who should be put on a terrorist watch list “just like you do to ISIS supporters.” As an independent, freelance journalist who doesn’t have the backing of any major journalistic institution, that was an unsettling thing to see. I think the right thing to do for me is to here is what I always do: offer some context and point out some bias, but first, I want to remind people that I’m only asking, even if our beliefs differ, that we are honest about what’s going on.
I’m not trying to force anyone to agree with me; I’m just going to highlight the linguistic and editorial choices that are being used to tell a particular story—that Palestinians are not really being oppressed, and in fact deserve the way they are being treated by the Israeli government and the global community—and then pose some questions about what kind of impact that will have.
How did we get here?
But first: the background. I want to make it clear that when I refer to Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians, I’m doing so because Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the International Federation for Human Rights and various progressive Jewish groups all identify the government’s actions as such. This is not a biased talking point; it’s credible expert analysis. I also think it’s important to note that colonization doesn’t have to involve Indigeneity—I’m a mixed, Indo-Trinidadian person whose ancestors were not indigenous to the Caribbean, yet I know all Caribbean people experienced colonization. So, regardless of whether Israelis and/or Palestinians can be classified as Indigenous (which is not something that I feel qualified to determine), it is fair to describe Israel’s ongoing annexation of land as colonization.
The last time I wrote about Israel and Palestine, in 2021, I said that there are “several good primers on the roots of this conflict (though I think we should be wary of the ones that position Palestine and Israel as equally-matched adversaries).” I think those links are still good, but I’m going to add a few more here that focus more on what has been happening since 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Vox has a quick but solid breakdown of what Zionism (a.k.a. the political movement that precipitated the creation of Israel and still serves as the country’s national ideology) is and how Israeli governments have approached it at various times over the past 75 years. Reuters has a timeline of the “major flare-ups” since 2005 that shows the outcome of each side’s military attacks. Al Jazeera’s guide to the Israel-Palestine conflict breaks down the major moments from the 1930s to now. This includes the blockade against Gaza, which is how the Israeli government controls what goes in and out of the enclave, including food, water and fuel, and the four military assaults Israel launched on Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. And this HuffPost piece explains why, while Hamas’s attack on Israel is horrifying, it was not unprovoked, while this Boston Globe op-ed by Palestinian journalist Abdallah Fayyad puts a human face on the same argument.
I’ve said this before, too, but I think it’s important to reiterate: we’re not talking about a ‘war’ between two countries. Gaza’s not a country, nor is the West Bank. So, we’re talking about a land dispute between a wealthy, industrialized and militarized nation that receives billions of dollars in foreign aid and the stateless group of millions who it has colonized, oppressed and, in Gaza, constrained to what has been called the world’s largest open-air prison.” Also: half of Gaza’s residents are literal children under the age of 18. If we don’t acknowledge all of this context, we are being intellectually dishonest.
Mainstream media outlets keep making editorial and linguistic choices that dehumanize Palestinians
And tbh, this week I’m seeing a lot of intellectual dishonesty.
When reporting on civilian deaths, news outlets like CTV and BBC use the passive voice strategically to assign responsibility; Israelis are killed, which leads the reader to ask, “By who?” The answer, of course, is Hamas. Meanwhile, Palestinians just… die with no one to blame, which positions their deaths as natural and expected—not tragedies, and certainly not deliberate actions we can attribute to specific people, groups or political ideology. We’ve seen this tactic before in all sorts of other situations; it is almost always used to dehumanize already marginalized people and protect powerful institutions.
Meanwhile, outlets like TMZ and People have been sharing powerful stories from Israeli civilians, including a woman who learned mid-interview that her husband had been killed and attendees of the music festival that Hamas attacked early Saturday morning, which CBC described as “the worst civilian massacre in Israel's history.” But few mainstream outlets are sharing similar stories from Palestinian civilians, who are also scared for their lives, and also being killed, and also mourning family members. (TMZ has posted one video of Israeli soldiers capturing a Palestinian man.) This disparity in coverage encourages audiences to see Israeli civilians as individuals and, more importantly, humans who deserve compassion, while Palestinians are discussed as a monolithic group that’s more difficult to identify with.
So, questions: when some victims are portrayed as humans just like us, while others are not portrayed at all, is it possible to get an accurate sense of this conflict’s total, true human cost? Does this contribute to the misconception that all Palestinians belong to, or at least support, Hamas? Why are media outlets so resistant to portraying Palestinian deaths as equal in tragedy to Israeli ones?
Sensational stories are going viral with the help of Western journalists
Over the weekend, the claim that 40 babies had been beheaded at an Israeli kibbutz went viral on social media, helped along by journalists who uncritically repeated stories they had heard from a Zionist Israeli soldier without independently verifying them. This was eventually debunked, but by then, the story had become impossible to contain… which is why it’s a really good case study for how reporters can easily spread misinformation, which can then take on a life of its own.
The source for this story seems to be an Oct. 10 article from Independent journalist Bel Trew. According to Mondoweiss, an independent news website focused on Israel, Palestine and U.S. foreign policy when it relates to the region, when Trew arrived at Kfar Aza kibbutz, which is located near Gaza, she was “told by a member of the Israeli military that children were beheaded, but the article notes, ‘The Independent did not see evidence of this.’”
As journalists, we are obligated to independently verify the things we’re told by politicians, military and police the same way we corroborate other sources’ claims, as they’re not inherently more credible just because they’re authorities. In fact, they’re often less credible, if not actual sources of propaganda. So that’s the first failure. But it actually goes even further; Trew’s source is Major David Ben Zion, who Mondoweiss identifies as “the deputy head of the settler leadership organization, the Samaria Regional Council, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fund for Israel, a quasi-governmental agency used to acquire land in Palestine that is then made available exclusively for use by the Israeli state… In addition to his role in settler leadership, Ben Zion has a history of calls to genocidal violence.” At no point does Trew disclose his political affiliations, even though they obviously have an impact on Ben Zion’s credibility. That’s the second failure.
The third is the inherent challenge of depending on the military for access to stories. In a really interesting 2012 Q&A in the Journal of Conflictology, photojournalist Laith Mushtaq spelled out the pros and cons of this approach to combat journalism. “The military forces give you possibilities that you can’t get as [an] unembedded journalist. They will provide security and make sure you are safe. They will take you by helicopter to places no one has been to and show you their version of events,” he said of his experiences embedded with American forces in Iraq and French forces in Afghanistan. “The disadvantage of being embedded is that the forces choose what you will see—in a nutshell, they control everything that you report.”
In this case, Trew and other journalists weren’t embedded, but they were being hosted by the Israeli Defence Forces, who obviously want to draw attention to Hamas’s brutalism. Her story did not include that detail, though. But shouldn’t readers know what biases might show up in her reporting?
This type of reporting is particularly irresponsible right now
Of course, she wasn’t the only person to report Ben Zion’s claims. He told Natalie Zedek of i24 News the same story (though she at least did disclose that press had been invited to “survey the scene of devastation in Kfar Aza”). CNN reporter Nic Robertson also mentioned reports of beheadings, though he didn’t cite Ben Zion as a source. And unlike Trew, neither of these journalists qualified their reporting with an acknowledgement that they hadn’t seen evidence of these beheadings first-hand. Obviously, this sensationalized story spread like wildfire across social media. People in my comment section brought it up, as well as the allegation that Hamas militants were raping Israeli women, another claim that has not yet been verified. But there was no proof. In fact, on Oct. 11, Israeli journalist Oren Ziv tweeted that he hadn’t seen or heard anything about beheadings on that tour, and cited an IDF spokesperson who said, “we can not confirm at this point… we are aware of the heinous acts Hamas is capable of.”
Even though the IDF would not confirm Ben Zion’s claim, though, some outlets continued running it. The Independent splashed it on the front page of the Oct. 11 issue, which likely would have gone to press that night of the 10th, while also saying it was “impossible to verify.” But you can’t have it both ways; if something is impossible to verify, we should not be reporting it at all, especially not in a situation where misinformation is everywhere and our usual news-sharing mechanism is broken. (Thank you so much, Elon.) At the very least, we should be explaining where our information comes from and why we’re reporting it even if we haven’t confirmed it ourselves.
My goal in breaking down how this story went viral isn’t to detract attention from the fact that 40 children died alongside their parents and grandparents. It’s to point out that those deaths were tragic as they actually happened, but Ben Zion didn’t think they were ‘bad’ enough, so he mischaracterized and weaponized them.
Some more questions: Why did so many people share stories about rape and beheadings, even though there wasn’t any proof these things had happened? Do Western perceptions of Muslim people as violent, misogynistic terrorists play into the virality of those stories? What informs journalists’ decisions on who to trust, and what can we surmise about their biases from who they use as sources? And, why haven’t stories of Palestinian babies being pulled from rubble been considered front-page news or heartbreaking enough to go viral in the same way?
Celebrities and politicians are contributing to misinformation
And… it’s not just journalists. Major sports teams, media conglomerates, museums, corporations of all stripes, politicians and every single celebrity on my Instagram have been moved to post statements decrying the violence, and particularly civilian deaths. The most balanced statements mention both Israeli and Palestinian civilians, but those are far rarer than statements focused on Israeli deaths. Any celebrity or public figure who mentions Palestinian liberation has faced immediate pressure to apologize and walk back their statements. But, celebrities and politicians who spread misinformation aren’t met with the same criticism.
Two examples: On Sunday, Jamie Lee Curtis posted a photo of children staring at the sky with the caption “terror from the skies” to her Instagram feed. She used an Israel flag emoji, implying she thought these children were Israeli. There was just one problem: the photo, which was taken by Gaza-based photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf, was of Palestinian children. According to Abu Elouf’s own caption, the photo was of “Palestinian families seek[ing] refuge with their children from the northern Gaza Strip.” When social media users pointed that out to Curtis, she deleted it without comment, acknowledgement or apology.
Similarly, on Wednesday, Justin Bieber posted an Instagram Story saying “pray for Israel” over an Associated Press photo of a destroyed building in Gaza. And when someone told him he’d made a mistake, he took the same approach as Curtis, quickly deleting it without comment and replacing it with a text Story repeating the “pray for Israel” message.
Our elected leaders are also spreading misinformation; in Ontario, premier Doug Ford characterized Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama’s initial statement in support of Palestinian liberation as “publicly supporting the rape and murder of innocent Jewish people.” This is a gross mischaracterization of Jama’s words; she called for an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation, an end to the occupation of Palestinian land and apartheid and said her heart “genuinely goes out to all those impacted by this on-going violence.” Agree or disagree with her on the necessity of Palestinian liberation, there is no world where those words mean what Doug Ford says they do. Meanwhile, on Oct. 11, U.S. president Joe Biden told media he “never really thought that [he] would see… confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.” Only, he didn’t. There are no confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children, which the White House eventually had to admit.
Last questions: What does it say about people’s biases and their perception of non-Western nations when they misidentify images of Palestine and Palestinians as photos of Israel and Israelis? Does this type of error encourage people to see the impact of this conflict as equivalent on both places and people, when we know that it is not? If so many credible sources characterize the Israeli state’s actions over the past 75 years as colonization and apartheid, why is there so much resistance to acknowledging that Palestinians have been suffering for decades, in profound ways? Are we grappling enough with the fact that Palestinian suffering happens thanks to financial support from Western nations? This week, we have seen Western politicians offer explicit support for Israeli politicians’ promises of ethnic cleansing—knowing that, should we interpret their circulation of misinformation as strategic attempts to manufacture consent for that ethnic cleansing?
Again, I want to emphasize that I think the death of Israeli civilians is tragic in every single case. And, it is an equivalent tragedy when Palestinian civilians are killed. The discourse around this conflict sends the message that these deaths aren’t equal, and in fact, Palestinian deaths are justified, but for that to be true, we’d have to ignore decades of evidence documenting Palestinians’ long-running disenfranchisement. And, we’d have to downplay Israel’s actions this week: Human Rights Watch says it has confirmed the IDF is using white phosphorous, and its "use in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law that parties to the conflict take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.” (Amnesty International has also confirmed its use, though the Israeli government denies its soldiers are using white phosphorous.) Israel has also warned 1.1 million Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza within 24 hours “ahead of an expected ground invasion,” according to the Associated Press. This is impossible—the United Nations says it would create a humanitarian disaster, while Médecins Sans Frontières says it “represents an attack on medical care and on humanity.” In the same way that we have to acknowledge that Hamas’s attacks target civilians, we cannot pretend Israel’s actions don’t do the same thing.
If I have a last thought, it’s about what we pay attention to and what we don’t. It’s easy and understandable to feel emotional over tragic photos and videos and sensationalized reports of atrocities. It’s hard to figure out where to find credible information, and time-consuming (and emotionally devastating) to actually do the reading. But this also facilitates the spread of misinformation. This conflict is often portrayed as impossible to parse if you’re not an academic, which gives us permission not to dig deeper. And sure, it’s a complex situation with a long history to untangle. But that means there’s no easy solution; it doesn’t mean it’s hard to understand what’s really going on.
We just have to pay attention.
And Did You Hear About…
These (justifiably scathing) Drake takes.
The Gen Z TikToker who reads newspapers every day and discusses what she learns. (This recent BuzzFeed interview with her was really good, too.)
Teen Vogue’s fascinating feature on the stans who get tattoos of their fave celebrities’ handwriting.
The lone alpha wolves meme—and the brands using it for marketing purposes. For example: Drumstick (yes, the ice cream company 😑).
Amanda Mull’s v. important sweater-weather reporting on why knitwear is such trash these days.
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