Pro-Israel bias in international and Nordic media coverage of war in Palestine
Edited version of the lecture I gave at the University of Tromsø in Norway on May the 13th.
In my younger days, I was the correspondent of the Aljazeera, based in Denmark.
Aljazeera is accused now for being a terrorist TV channel. A TV station that is supporting terrorists during the war on Gaza.
And as Aljazeera were accused of being a terrorist TV Channal, Israeli government decided less than 10 days ago to close Al Jazeera channel in Israel.
The decision follows a law, commonly referred to as the “Al Jazeera law”, passed in April by the Israeli Knesset that allows the closure of foreign broadcasters considered to pose a security threat during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
But is this Targeting the truth or the Aljazzera TV and its journalists on the ground in Palestine? Or both?
What is the position of Norway on this:
Quote: “The world community is completely dependent on the media for credible information about the situation. Banning a news outlet like Al Jazeera is a direct attack on press freedom”.
That is what Norway’s Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide, told Norwegian TV 2 on May 6 in response to Israel’s decision to close the Israeli branch of the news channel Al Jazeera.
220 days are gone since the last battle / attack against Palestine / Gaza started.
It is the latest battle of the war that started 76 years ago, when the state of Israel was established in Palestine in 1948. The war which is called the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) the 15th of May 1948.
The day after tomorrow we will be commemorating the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians,
Three-quarters of the Palestinian population at that time, from their homeland in 1948, and the following denial of their right to return.
Where is the media in this war?
Never before have so many media-workers been killed in such a short time!
- not in the two world wars!
- not during the wars in Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan,
- not even in Ukraine!
| As of First of May, Israel had killed 140 journalists in Gaza alone,
While: 69 journalists were killed during World War II, 63 in the Vietnam War, 17 in the Korean War 17 in the Russian-Ukrainian War. |
And by killing 140 journalists until now, no journalist is allowed to inter Gaza and report from the war field.
As no international journalist is allowed in Gaza, the international media depends on journalists reporting from inside Israel about the war in Gaza.
Quote:
“The Israeli army pronounces, …………………..IDF says… “.
With these words, Western – including Nordic journalists – begin or end their TV reports on the ongoing Israel-Palestine war.
Since the beginning of the latest Israel/Palestine war in Gaza and during the last 7 months, it seems that the protocol on journalistic ethics that Western journalists love to preach about has been hidden far away.
The absence of ethics goes far beyond what might be called professional errors and even bias.
Western journalists faithfully follow the Israeli narrative and are busy covering breaking news as spokesmen for the occupying army.
The New embedded journalism
The involvement of the Western media in the current war in Gaza can be considered a new type of embedded journalism.
That is a media genre, in which journalists accompany a military unit, under conditions decided by that military unit.
This results in a war-coverage, that is difficult to distinguish from military declarations.
This type of journalism emerged as American tradition during the Gulf War in 1991.
It is described by the French thinker Jean Baudrillard as the first war in which victories, are declared on television, before they are achieved on earth.
As a result of the success of the genre, the United States and Europe became more aware of the need to use the media in war.
So, the international journalists travel to the Israeli settlements around Gaza, together with Israeli soldiers or settlers, broadcasting reports, whose only source is Israeli soldiers or settlers, which we follow in the Scandinavian media.
No Norwegian journalist reports from Gaza but sends their reports from Tel Aviv or other Israeli cities and settlements.
The most famous example of these soldier-journalist-partnership trips is the story about Hamas beheading Israeli babies.
This story spread like wildfire in the Western media, and all the way to the US president Joe Biden himself on Oktober the 11th.
On the 12. of Oct. Israeli officials denied that babies were beheaded, and the white house said that US president did not see pictures of beheaded babies but relied on Israeli information coming from Netanyahu office.
So, the story of beheaded babies was taken down from media outlets in the US.
At the same time, no western media reports on the thousands of Palestinian babies killed by Israel until now:
The Palestinian death toll now stands at 35 thousand.
The number of children who were killed is around 15 thousand children and 10 thousand women.
As a result of the ongoing war, some 17,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the death toll due to terror by Israeli settlers and army against Palestinians resulted in 500 killed, including more than 100 children under the age of 18.
But the echo of the fake story about Hamas beheading Israeli babies kept going on in western media.
We could hear Danish Broadcasting corporation DR, equivalent to NRK on Nov. 03. THREE WEEKS AFTER documenting that the story of BEHEADED Israeli BABIES is A FAKE.
The Danish correspondent in Israel kept mentioning the beheaded Israeli babies.
Another Danish TV station TV 2 has a correspondent sitting in Tel Aviv.
He is defending that he is covering the war objectively, but he apparently has not read the withdrawal of this story as fake news.
The TV host approved statements about beheading Babies and has not corrected it or dismissed it as fake news, which the whole world has been informed 3 weeks earlier, except the Danish press!
When it comes to media in Norway, I have the following example:
We can see that a Human Right organization in Norway (Human Rights Service HRS) is defending Israel war on Gaza and describing Israel war as a Norwegian struggle to defend the Norwegian culture and civilization.
Rita Karlsen is the leader and editor of HRS and she is here describing the media coverage of Israel war on Gaza.
She accuses mainstream media MSM for being not critical but pro- Palestinian
Rita Karlsen writes about the Israeli attack on a hospital in Gaza Al Shifa hospital and says that Hamas has a command center under the hospital.
Israeli Army launched a targeted operation against al-Shifa hospital.
An operation that the doctor and activist – and MSM’s widely used voice – Mads Gilbert refers to as “medical racism”.
So, Rita Kalrsen is not only attacking MSM, but also anyone in Norway who is expressing views contrary to the Israel narrative, and accusing Mads Gilbert for NOT STRUGLING to defend the Norwegian culture and civilization.
Considering that the coverage of the bombardment of everything in Gaza; civilians, hospitals, schools and UN buildings were not quite to Israel’s liking, its top Israeli officials joins Rita Karlsen and came out to lecture the media on how to do their job.
The clearest voice to express the role of the Western media is former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who on October 19 said the following:
He says the following :
- “if the international media is objective, they serve Hamas,
- if they present the narrative from both sides, they serve Hamas,
- if they create symmetry in suffering without first verifying their cause, they serve Hamas,
I’m not telling you how to do your job, but it needs to change.
We will be happy to assist you in any way you suggest ensuring that the way this conflict is covered radically changes.”
The essence of press coverage in Europe and other countries that pay tribute to Israel is determined by the identity and ethnicity of the victims, not by the value of human life.
For example, in their coverage of the war, the BBC uses the word “died” when referring to Palestinian victims in Gaza, and “killed” when it comes to Israeli victims.
Similarly, Norwegian media use the word gidsler/ hostages to refer to Israeli captives in Gaza.
Hostage is what a criminal group is taking when they attack a bank like in Hollywood Films.
While at the same time using the word fanger /prisoners for Palestinian captives in Israel.
It is part of any war to take prisoners in war, like in Hollywood Films. and it is not criminal act.
I would like to ALMOST finish my contribution today with a fresh story yesterday the 12th of May from Oslo:
Med Israel for Fred (MIFF) is a Norwegian NGO founded in 1978. From the turn of the millennium until 2022, the organization’s membership has increased from around 1,000 to around 12,000.
Many of the members are influencers, journalists, and politicians.
They are the biggest pro- Israel lobby in Norway and is part of the campaigns in Norway to support Israel and its politics.
They are active in using the accusation of being anti-simit against anyone who criticize Israel and against demonstrations that demand ceasefire in Gaza and rise the Palestinians flag.
They finished yesterday the biggest Nordic Israel Congress in Norway with:
Organizing a demonstration in Oslo:
