PETALING JAYA: Israel’s war against journalism and the complacency that some play is a reason why there are no foreign reporters in Gaza, says Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges.
In an article for CounterCurents.org, Hedges lays out Israel’s war against the spreading of the truth.
“There are some 4,000 foreign reporters accredited in Israel to cover the war. They stay in luxury hotels. They go on dog and pony shows orchestrated by the Israeli military. They dutifully attend daily press conferences.
“They are Israel’s unwitting and sometimes witting propagandists, stenographers for the architects of apartheid and genocide, hotel room warriors,” wrote Hedges, adding that on the other hand, the reporters in Gaza are Palestinians who often pay with their lives.
They are targeted, along with their families, for assassination.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 134 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, while 69 others have been imprisoned. They are marking it as the deadliest period for journalists since 1992.
The Israeli military had also branded six Palestinian journalists in Gaza who work for Al Jazeera as “terrorists”, noted Hedges.
“The scale and savagery of the Israeli assault on the media dwarfs anything I witnessed during my two decades as a war correspondent.
“To the powerful, the war makers and the domesticated media, these real journalists are the enemy,” he wrote.
He added that this year, 65 US House Democrats and over 70 media and civil society organisations had pushed for Israel to permit foreign reporters into Gaza. But the call fell on deaf ears.
“Israel, with the fulsome support of the US government, is eviscerating the last shreds of freedom of the press,” wrote Hedges.
“Censorship and the silencing of journalists who expose Israel’s war crimes and the suffering Israel inflicts on civilians is an Israeli priority.
“The most important impediment to Israel’s mass hypnosis is the Palestinian journalists in Gaza. This is why the kill rate is so high,” he added.
The full article is available here:
Israel’s War on Journalism
https://countercurrents.org/2024/11/israels-war-on-journalism/
