There’s no question Western news media harbors biases. Whether it’s villainizing Black people and Latinos in news stories as they echo what “police say” without scrutiny, or killing civilians in wars all over the world, or overthrowing governments in Latin America to install U.S.-friendly far-right Christian nationalist dictators, the bias in our news ecosystem is broad and visible.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, we saw not only journalists refer to Ukrainian children as “civilized” and “not from some faraway place like the Middle East,” but we also saw world leaders say and do the same things. While many apologized for their comments after widespread backlash, their thought process on how white people are viewed compared to Black and brown people exposed who they are and why our media ecosystem harbors such biases.
“Ukraine isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades,” said Charlie D’Agata on CBS News in April 2022. “This is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.”
Despite his choosing his words “wisely,” his words painted white people as civilized and non-white people outside of Europe as less than human. Meanwhile, a BBC journalist at the time uttered the words, “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives,” showing us just how broad that bias is.
There are countless examples of this from the start of the war in Ukraine, and while it somewhat explains what is happening today in our news media, we can not forget Western media’s ugly history in this arena. From referring to Indigenous people defending themselves in the West as savages to slaughtering millions in the Middle East in our so-called war on terror, this same bias is being applied in legacy news reporting on Israel’s relentless slaughter of Palestinians.
The murder of two Israeli embassy workers is tragic and should be reported on, but it should be accurate. The perpetrator who allegedly committed the murders did so not because of a hatred for Jewish people but of a loathing of what the Israeli government is doing in Palestine with Western support, primarily weapons provided using U.S. taxpayer dollars, an unpopular move.
According to his alleged manifesto, which the FBI validated as the shooter’s after they visited Ken Klippenstein in an attempt to intimidate him for publishing it, he was motivated not by antisemitism but by the genocide of Palestinians. That much is abundantly clear, yet the media is echoing what “police say” in calling it an antisemitic attack. To declare the horrific shooting antisemitic would require redefining the meaning, which highlights why that is so dangerous.
While all of this was happening, Nazis were again roaming the streets in our neighborhoods across the country and the administration, along with the pro-genocide crowd, remain silent in comparision to speaking out against those who want the slaughter to stop. This creates a more dangerous environment for Jewish people. If the focus is on redefining antisemitism to target anti-war students, then they are ignoring those who really wish to do Jewish people harm.
The problem with the far-right, pro-genocide lobby is the unpopularity of Israel’s actions by nearly every non-Western nation on Earth. In other words, wars are lost not by casualty counts but by losing global support. In that sense, Israel lost a long time ago. Because of that, the attacks against people who speak up are motivated by silencing dissent and attacking free speech, and if they had their way, sending U.S. citizens to gulags in foreign countries.
Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of Joseph Neumeyer, a 28-year-old dual U.S. and German citizen, at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was arrested at his hotel in Israel and later picked up on his way back into the country after visiting Israel, where he was allegedly planning to firebomb the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.
According to the DOJ, Neumeyer arrived outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on May 19 carrying a dark-colored backpack. The report alleges that, without provocation, Neumeyer spat on an Embassy guard as he walked by. As the guard attempted to detain him, Neumeyer broke free, leaving behind his backpack, which allegedly contained “three rudimentary improvised incendiary devices,” otherwise known as Molotov cocktails.
“This defendant is charged with planning a devastating attack targeting our embassy in Israel, threatening death to Americans, and President Trump’s life,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “The Department will not tolerate such violence and will prosecute this defendant to the fullest extent of the law.”
While the news focuses on these two events, Israel bombed a school, killing dozens of people, including children. A video that went viral on social media shows what appears to be a little girl in a building engulfed in flames trying to find her way out. Hospitals, schools, houses of worship, private homes, nothing is off limits for the Israeli government. None of these has previously moved the U.S. Congress to condemn Israel’s actions, and we shouldn’t expect them to.
Their callous inaction to stop the killings alongside continuing to ship weapons and fund the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, who are Indigenous to the land alongside Arab Jews and Christians, speaks volumes about the motivations of the U.S. government behind the scenes with the help of lobbies like AIPAC and organizations like the ADL. These two organizations alone pressure lawmakers with false claims of antisemitism to continue the slaughter.
With many lawmakers today more focused on being reelected than they are on serving the people, when these pro-Israel groups brag about funding (and swinging) elections, it’s easy for them to point to that and warn elected officials, essentially threatening their jobs. While studies show that weaponizing cynical claims of antisemitism is largely driven by Islamophobia and anti-Arab animus, many argue this is the single motivating factor for these groups, Israel, and the U.S. to continue killing Arabs after 20 years of killing millions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The insanity has to stop.
A Word…
As an independent journalist who focuses on calling out legacy media for failing to provide full context on so many stories due to their institutional bias, I yearn to one day see them do the same. But since it’s all corporate media and since corporate interests are what drive U.S. foreign policy and military actions that kill scores of innocent people, I doubt that will happen in my lifetime.
Until then, we must continue demanding that Western news media do their job and hold power to account instead of appeasing it. The fight for truth and justice continues.
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