As Israel’s war in Gaza is about to enter its seventh month, more than 32,000 Palestinians, including some 13,700 children have been killed in the Israeli military’s brutal air and ground assault. The war that began after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 hostages has destroyed most of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, hospitals, churches and schools.
The official UN-backed global body designating starvation found that “famine is imminent” in Gaza, leading to “major acceleration of deaths and malnutrition” for 1.1 million people there. Israeli forces are blocking humanitarian aid deliveries, despite recent demands from the top UN court and the Security Council for unfettered access for life-saving food shipments, a temporary ceasefire and the safe return of all hostages.
An Israeli-targeted airstrike killed seven international aid workers from the World Central Kitchen on April 1, leading the group’s spokesperson to state, “…this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war.” Amid the staggering carnage in Gaza, there’s growing concern about the slanting of news reports about the war. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with independent journalist Arvind Dilawar, who discusses how Israeli propagandists target U.S. journalists, skewing coverage of the Gaza war with a pro-Israeli bias.
ARVIND DILAWAR: Well, it’s actually sort of remarkable because you have two almost distinct channels that, generally speaking, are almost defined by age. Older Americans are more likely than younger ones to turn to traditional forms of media, such as broadcast journalism on television. And there you can sort of see, almost like the State Department’s line on what’s going on in Gaza.
That is, the Israeli military is trying to minimize civilian casualties and return the hostages while taking all precaution and yet still, you know, successfully fighting Hamas.
That is remarkably different from what you see on social media, where it’s more of a direct stream of information directly from the ground on Gaza, particularly on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, which is obviously now known as X.
There you’re really getting, a picture of what it’s like for Palestinians on the ground to live through this. And it’s almost the exact opposite of what broadcast journalism is showing. That is, you know, indiscriminate violence from the Israeli military. Very little concern for civilians, if not the intentional targeting of civilians.
And these two distinct channels — that is, broadcast journalism versus social media are having a profound effect on, you know, how Americans perceive the conflict, whether this is justified anti-terrorism operation or this is a genocide that we’re watching unfold.
I think it’s also particularly worth keeping in mind that journalists themselves are not free to report from Israel, that is Israel proper, and the occupied Palestinian territories. They need to register with the Israeli government. They need to have press credentials, which also entails them being subject to Israeli military censorship. And this is true of Israeli publications as much as it’s true of CNN.
Recently, there was some reporting about how CNN runs all of its coverage of the war through its Jerusalem bureau, which is subject to Israeli military censorship. This also becomes more extreme when you get to Gaza, where the international press in general is not let in. One of the only publications there since Oct. 7 to this day has been Al Jazeera who are relying on Palestinian journalists to essentially tell the story of their own genocide.
So there’s a lot of reasons why we have sort of very disparate views that Americans are being spoon-fed in I would say the broadcast journalism versus, you know, getting raw through social media.
SCOTT HARRIS: Arvind, I did want to, also mention that in U.S. media generally, there’s a lot of featuring of Israeli spokespeople, the military or government spokespeople, and very little pushback despite occasions when there is evidence contradicting what the Israeli spokespeople are telling an American audience. U.S. anchors and editors generally take what the Israeli spokespeople say at face value with no challenge at all.
ARVIND DILAWAR: Yeah, absolutely. I think partly this is due to Israeli spokespeople really being smart enough to not only offer their sort of routine press releases. The Israeli military every day offers a press release in Hebrew, but they also offer it in English. That’s really the only other language they offer it. And that’s because they need and they understand that they need the United States government and its people to sort of remain on the Israeli side to keep funding their military occupation and the ongoing genocide more particularly.
You can compare this to the sort of, you know, standard set up of any news show with you, you know, have your anchor in the middle of two talking heads on one side, it’s usually a Democrat and the other side’s a Republican, and the anchor sort of sits back and let them get at it.
But when you look at coverage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, there’s actually no other side. There’s really just the anchor who allows the Israeli presenter, usually someone from the government or military to present their justification for the ongoing military operations. And there’s really nobody across the aisle from them to sort of debate them at all.
This is partially because Palestine has been occupied since 1948 and there is no recognized government essentially to provide that counterpoint. Most Palestinian media is in Arabic. But really, there is no pushback at all because there’s no one on the other side of the aisle. You would imagine that American anchors would know better. But there’s also, especially since Oct. 7, been a real lack of accountability.
Visit the website of Arvind Dilawar, independent journalist at adilawar.com.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Arvind Dilawar (18:47). More articles and opinion pieces are found in the Related Links section of this page.
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