AhlulBayt News Agency: An analysis of the first six weeks of the war revealed that the news coverage by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times exhibited significant human bias against Palestinians.
When news broke over the weekend about Biden's approval of an $8 billion arms deal to Israel, a U.S. official promised, "We will continue to provide Israel with the necessary capabilities to defend itself."
This decision by Biden, following reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about genocide occurring in Gaza, marked a new moral low for his presidency. Norman Solomon, in an article titled "The Genocidal President, Genocidal Policies," wrote: "Focusing on Biden as an individual is logical. His decisions to continue sending massive amounts of weapons to Israel have been both central and catastrophic.
However, this genocide, supported by the U.S. presidency and the active silence of the vast majority of Congress, aligns with the dominant policies and media in the United States."
Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor for The New York Times Magazine. Her statement, more than a year later, still reflects the collapse of the moral credibility of many liberal institutions following the destruction of Gaza.
While Boyer condemned "the U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza by the Israeli government," she chose to explicitly distance herself from the country's most prominent liberal news institution: "I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies."
This process of habituating the mind to lies and crimes quickly became routine. It was particularly reinforced by Biden and his loyal supporters, who were motivated to pretend that he was not doing what he was actually doing. When Boyer realized the significance of The New York Times' coverage of Gaza, she resigned from this "the newspaper of record."
An analysis of the first six weeks of the war showed that the news coverage by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times exhibited significant human bias against Palestinians. According to a study by The Intercept, these three newspapers "heavily emphasized Israeli deaths" and "used emotional language to describe the killing of Israelis, but not Palestinians."
The study stated: "The term 'massacre' was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians at a ratio of 125 to 2, and the word 'horrific' at a ratio of 36 to 4. That is, when Israelis were killed, it was described as horrific nine times more often than when Palestinian women and children were killed."
A year after the Gaza war, Rashid Khalidi, an Arab-American historian, said: "My objection to outlets like The New York Times is that they see everything from an Israeli perspective. How are Israelis affected? How do Israelis see it? Israel is at the center of their worldview, and this applies to our elites across the West as well. Israelis have cleverly reinforced this Israel-centric view by preventing direct reporting from Gaza."
Khalidi concluded: "The mainstream media is as blind as it ever was, as willing to shill for any monstrous Israeli lie, to act as stenographers for power, repeating what is said in Washington."
The homogeneous media landscape paved the way for Biden and his prominent supporters to evade responsibility, shape the narrative, and present complicity as a neutral policy.
Meanwhile, a massive volume of weapons and ammunition was supplied to Israel from the United States. Nearly half of the Palestinians killed were children. For those children and their families, the road to hell was paved with good doublethink. For example, while the horror in Gaza continued, no journalist confronted Biden with the words he had spoken during the mass shooting at Uvalde, Texas.
Biden had quickly gone on live television at the time and said: "There are parents who will never see their child again." He added: "Losing a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. This is a feeling shared by siblings, grandparents, family members, and the community left behind." He reflectively asked: "Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?"
The massacre in Uvalde took the lives of 19 children. The daily massacres in Gaza have taken the lives of that many Palestinian children in just a few hours. While Biden refused to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and mass murder that he kept making possible, Democrats in his orbit cooperated with silence or other types of evasion. A longstanding maneuver amounts to checking the box for a requisite platitude by affirming support for a “two-state solution.”
In Congress, the unwritten rule has been that Palestinians, as a practical political issue, can be ignored.
Party leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries did virtually nothing to indicate otherwise. Nor did they exert themselves to defend incumbent House Democrats Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, defeated in summer primaries with an unprecedented deluge of multimillion-dollar ad campaigns funded by AIPAC and Republican donors.
The overall media environment was a bit more varied but no less lethal for Palestinian civilians.
During the first few months, the Gaza war received extensive media coverage, which gradually diminished; the effect of this coverage was largely the normalization of ongoing slaughter. There were some exceptional reports about the suffering, but journalism gradually turned into background noise, while Biden's weak efforts for a ceasefire were highlighted as decisive moves.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced increasing criticism. But the dominant media coverage in the United States and political rhetoric—which largely avoided exposing Israel's mission to destroy Palestinians—rarely went beyond accusing Israeli leaders of neglecting the protection of Palestinian civilians. Instead of honesty in the face of horrific facts, the usual media stories and U.S. politics were filled with vague and evasive phrases.
When Anne Boyer resigned from The New York Times Magazine in mid-November 2023, she condemned what she called "an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture." Another poet, William Stafford, wrote decades ago: "I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact."
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His most recent book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published by The New Press.
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When news broke over the weekend about Biden's approval of an $8 billion arms deal to Israel, a U.S. official promised, "We will continue to provide Israel with the necessary capabilities to defend itself."
This decision by Biden, following reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch about genocide occurring in Gaza, marked a new moral low for his presidency. Norman Solomon, in an article titled "The Genocidal President, Genocidal Policies," wrote: "Focusing on Biden as an individual is logical. His decisions to continue sending massive amounts of weapons to Israel have been both central and catastrophic.
However, this genocide, supported by the U.S. presidency and the active silence of the vast majority of Congress, aligns with the dominant policies and media in the United States."
Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor for The New York Times Magazine. Her statement, more than a year later, still reflects the collapse of the moral credibility of many liberal institutions following the destruction of Gaza.
While Boyer condemned "the U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza by the Israeli government," she chose to explicitly distance herself from the country's most prominent liberal news institution: "I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies."
This process of habituating the mind to lies and crimes quickly became routine. It was particularly reinforced by Biden and his loyal supporters, who were motivated to pretend that he was not doing what he was actually doing. When Boyer realized the significance of The New York Times' coverage of Gaza, she resigned from this "the newspaper of record."
An analysis of the first six weeks of the war showed that the news coverage by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times exhibited significant human bias against Palestinians. According to a study by The Intercept, these three newspapers "heavily emphasized Israeli deaths" and "used emotional language to describe the killing of Israelis, but not Palestinians."
The study stated: "The term 'massacre' was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians at a ratio of 125 to 2, and the word 'horrific' at a ratio of 36 to 4. That is, when Israelis were killed, it was described as horrific nine times more often than when Palestinian women and children were killed."
A year after the Gaza war, Rashid Khalidi, an Arab-American historian, said: "My objection to outlets like The New York Times is that they see everything from an Israeli perspective. How are Israelis affected? How do Israelis see it? Israel is at the center of their worldview, and this applies to our elites across the West as well. Israelis have cleverly reinforced this Israel-centric view by preventing direct reporting from Gaza."
Khalidi concluded: "The mainstream media is as blind as it ever was, as willing to shill for any monstrous Israeli lie, to act as stenographers for power, repeating what is said in Washington."
The homogeneous media landscape paved the way for Biden and his prominent supporters to evade responsibility, shape the narrative, and present complicity as a neutral policy.
Meanwhile, a massive volume of weapons and ammunition was supplied to Israel from the United States. Nearly half of the Palestinians killed were children. For those children and their families, the road to hell was paved with good doublethink. For example, while the horror in Gaza continued, no journalist confronted Biden with the words he had spoken during the mass shooting at Uvalde, Texas.
Biden had quickly gone on live television at the time and said: "There are parents who will never see their child again." He added: "Losing a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. This is a feeling shared by siblings, grandparents, family members, and the community left behind." He reflectively asked: "Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?"
The massacre in Uvalde took the lives of 19 children. The daily massacres in Gaza have taken the lives of that many Palestinian children in just a few hours. While Biden refused to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and mass murder that he kept making possible, Democrats in his orbit cooperated with silence or other types of evasion. A longstanding maneuver amounts to checking the box for a requisite platitude by affirming support for a “two-state solution.”
In Congress, the unwritten rule has been that Palestinians, as a practical political issue, can be ignored.
Party leaders like Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries did virtually nothing to indicate otherwise. Nor did they exert themselves to defend incumbent House Democrats Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, defeated in summer primaries with an unprecedented deluge of multimillion-dollar ad campaigns funded by AIPAC and Republican donors.
The overall media environment was a bit more varied but no less lethal for Palestinian civilians.
During the first few months, the Gaza war received extensive media coverage, which gradually diminished; the effect of this coverage was largely the normalization of ongoing slaughter. There were some exceptional reports about the suffering, but journalism gradually turned into background noise, while Biden's weak efforts for a ceasefire were highlighted as decisive moves.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced increasing criticism. But the dominant media coverage in the United States and political rhetoric—which largely avoided exposing Israel's mission to destroy Palestinians—rarely went beyond accusing Israeli leaders of neglecting the protection of Palestinian civilians. Instead of honesty in the face of horrific facts, the usual media stories and U.S. politics were filled with vague and evasive phrases.
When Anne Boyer resigned from The New York Times Magazine in mid-November 2023, she condemned what she called "an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture." Another poet, William Stafford, wrote decades ago: "I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact."
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His most recent book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published by The New Press.
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