Friday, October 27: Two Types of Journalist
Who are you listening to? What are they saying while Palestine is bleeding?
With the horrors taking place in Gaza every day, a pretty clear divide has been revealed in the two starkly different types of media coverage. While most reporters in the western world are too nervous to open their mouths and call Israel’s military campaign a genocide, for fear of professional repercussions, Palestinian journalists are forced to do their jobs amidst the worst kinds of tragic conditions imaginable.
Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera's chief Gaza correspondent and the Palestinian journalist whose family was murdered in a targeted Israeli airstrike yesterday, is already back in front of the cameras and on-air reporting out of "an obligation to cover this historic story despite everything". I can’t possibly imagine how this man is still standing, let alone able to do his job after the loss he just experienced, and is still experiencing. A loss he likely won’t even get the opportunity or basic respect of processing in real time.
Another Palestinian journalist, Muhammad Smiry, begins every day with a simple declaration: “I am still alive. #Gaza” A reminder that though we’re seeing ethnic cleansing live and in color, the apartheid-defending Israeli military could never extinguish the Palestinian resolve for liberation because despite their bottomless military budget, no such weapon exists. There are journalists who are sacrificing everything to report on what’s taking place and there are also journalists sacrificing their conscience to cover it up.
Outlets as prominent and “objective” as the associated press can provide details on how the destruction of northern Gaza is visible from space in satellite images, but they can’t fix their mouths to call it a genocide. In the past three weeks, the UN has had 57 of its employees killed in Gaza, and still no sign of a resolution for ceasefire passing. After the spineless cretin Joey Biden publicly called into question the numbers of dead being reported in Gaza, the Ministry of Health took valuable time out of carefully documenting the ongoing ethnic cleansing to publish the names of 7,028 Palestinians, including 2913 children killed in Gaza over the past 20 days.
Yesterday the US senate UNANIMOUSLY adopted a resolution condemning pro-Palestine student protesters as "in solidarity with Hamas" and anti-semitic. Their resolution calls to "fully and completely support Israel" in its war on Gaza and condemns students - mainly Arab and Muslim, but so many from other races and backgrounds - for refusing to be compliant with the US-funded, Israeli-led genocide. The resolution goes so far as to list the various statements made by numerous university campus groups, many from chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine.
It’s incredibly disturbing to witness how merely waving a Palestinian flag and calling for Palestinian liberation on a school campus or at a sports stadium is deemed "hate" but Israeli officials in positions of great power can use words like "human animals" and "savages" and "beasts" and refer to fulfilling religious prophecies and “people of the light vs. people of the dark” and thats all cool, no problemo. At some point we probably have to recognize that collectively, we're governed by monsters who would rather live as the last person high atop a mountain of our skulls than build a safe, equal, and dignified world for all. I for one, am exhausted by this realization.
Side Items
Auto Workers Strike Update: The United Auto Workers Union announced a tentative agreement with Ford this week for a four and a half year contract. The new contract, which still has to be approved by the company’s 57,000 union members, includes a 25% wage increase and $5K ratification bonus, the reinstatement of a cost of living adjustment, and increases for retiree pensions, and current workers 401Ks, among other things. This is a huge win for auto workers and another clear sign that collective action works
Maine Manhunt Still Ongoing: Residents of the state of Maine are staying inside for a second night as hundreds of near-useless police and FBI agents continue to search for Robert Card, the Army reservist and firearms instructor that fatally shot at least 18 people this week. Apparently Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this past summer after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base. But instead he wound up changing his target and attacking helpless civilians at a bowling alley
Hurricane Otis: At least 27 people are dead and at least four are missing after Hurricane Otis broke records and tore through Mexico this week. Local officials said not a single power line pole remained standing in Acapulco, a coastal city of a million people, and hundreds of thousands of people remain without electricity. The climate crisis isn’t coming, it’s here and it’s getting more comfortable every day