Byline: Prof. Dina Matar, Centre for Global Media and Communications, SOAS University of London

Co-founder of ActforPal

 

Images and stories of thousands of hungry and desperate Palestinians in Gaza attempting to reach food supplies after months of Israeli-enforced starvation have flooded mainstream media and social media platforms over the past week, accompanied by controversies over the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the aid organization Israel and the US have sanctioned to provide food under gunpoint. In light of changing public perceptions of Israel’s genocide, media and public attention to—and criticism of— starvation as a war crime is largely welcome. In recent days, some optimists have even pointed to a significant shift in the media and Western discourse about Israel in response to evidence of starved Palestinians.

 

However, much Western media coverage continues to use negative terms regarding Palestinians who have been subjected to a genocide for almost 600 days and starvation for more than 60 days: they are described by the BBC as seizing or looting supplies and breaking into, overrunning or storming the new US-backed new aid distribution site in Gaza. Such biased language is not only dehumanizing and ideologically structured but also serves to restrict the epistemological field, that is the necessity to understand Israel’s genocidal war as a long-term practice of a settler colonial state.

 

What is more worrying is that Israel has consistently used such performative moments of televised aid delivery to distract media and global attention from its continued genocide in Gaza and its expansionist policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This distractive practice has been a central tactic of Israel’s political communication and propaganda strategies, intended to legitimize the genocide and to put forward an image of Palestinians as angry and uncontrolled crowds while also obscuring its expanding settler-colonial practices. Indeed, while continuing its destruction of Gaza and killing of innocent people, Israel announced on May 29 that it is again scaling up its settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, increasing the number of these illegal outposts by 22—the largest expansion in decades.

 

These distractive tactics are neither new nor surprising. One glaring example is the endless state-fed, media-fuelled false accusations against the most important UN aid agency to support Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Such tactics are part of a concerted plan of action used by Israel and its supporters to legitimize its actions, whatever the circumstances or consequences. The plan has also been aided by the infamous Project Esther of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, intended to crush Palestine solidarity, particularly in the US and its allies. Framed as an initiative to combat antisemitism, Project Esther calls for collaboration between public and private entities to employ censorship, intimidation, and lawfare to delegitimize and dismantle organizations advocating for Palestinian rights.

 

However, Project Esther—and the broader pro-Israel efforts to counter growing Palestine solidarity—did not begin with the genocide in Gaza, as the detailed report by Palestinian policy network al-Shabaka has shown. However, it has been given a substantial push by US President Donald Trump’s attacks against Palestine solidarity groups at US universities. For decades, Zionists and their allies have systematically sought to suppress public dissent in the US and other Western nations by targeting individuals and groups advocating for Palestinian rights. These efforts have escalated significantly under Trump, who this month issued orders to stop visa applications for foreign students, following his executive order expanding crackdowns on pro-Palestine advocacy under the guise of combating antisemitism.

 

Some mainstream media outlets in the West have begun to admonish Israel openly, while others continue to mythologize Israel as a ‘beleaguered democracy’ defending itself against ‘terrorism’. These outlets are outpaced by independent news and social media platforms that have offered Palestinians fresh outlets to tell their own stories and challenge longstanding propaganda. Students, scholars, and activists advocating for Palestinian liberation are also increasingly challenging the once-dominant pro-Israel narrative. However, it is time for mainstream Western media to interrogate their approaches to such narratives and to question their own complicity in Israel’s occupation and genocide through repeating without questioning Israel’s propaganda.