Why does Israel target media outlets in Gaza?
Surely an honest actor like Benjamin Netanyahu has good reason for doing so!
The only democracy in the Middle East has a curious way of demonstrating its commitment to democratic values. On Saturday, Israeli missiles pummeled a building in Gaza housing offices of the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Eye. Why attack media outlets? Wouldn’t Israel want journalists to freely document how its Gaza bombing campaign targets only terrorists? Should the world not be privy to Israel’s noble struggle of self-defense?
The official IDF narrative that the structure was home to Hamas military intelligence holds little water. According to AP CEO Gary Pruit, there was “no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building”, which the agency had occupied for 15 years. Al Jazeera, MEE, and independent journalists concurred. Mayadeen Media Group recently relocated there, and AP reporters set up temporary residence, both on the errant belief that international agency offices would be spared Israeli fire. The building’s owner pleaded with Israeli officials for extra time to salvage specialized cameras and other equipment, as reporters, doctors, lawyers, and families scrambled down darkened stairwells, leaving the sole elevator to children and the elderly. Longtime workers and residents alike recounted no nefarious activity. It is hard to see how multiple media outlets, whose raison d’être is investigative journalism, could be ignorant of Hamas presence under their noses for over a decade.
Perhaps the IDF made an honest mistake then? If so, it is an extraordinary coincidence that two other honest mistakes destroyed Gazan journalistic redoubts just days prior. More plausibly, newsrooms were not collateral damage but targets. That seems unfortunate, but Israel is an honest actor so there must have been magnanimous intent!
Maybe Israel is militarizing the fight against fake news? Surely it would be better to vaporize the purveyors of disinformation before they can undermine cherished democratic institutions. But that is a hard circle to square when Israel itself jeopardizes democracy by arresting Palestinian politicians and refusing to green-light elections in East Jerusalem.
Maybe Israel wants to protect Palestinians from mistaken foreign messaging in the event of rescheduled elections? We wouldn’t want those Arabs to vote for the wrong leadership again! But that doesn’t seem quite right either, as most foreign media false equivalencies fall in Israel’s favor.
Or perhaps, as the Committee to Protect Journalists suggests, the IDF “is deliberately targeting media facilities in order to disrupt coverage of the human suffering in Gaza.” Finally, a theory that fits the pattern of Israeli action. Attacking refugee camps makes for a PR nightmare. So does bombing children:
As atrocities accumulate, pressure is mounting on the Biden administration. Netanyahu is struggling to control the narrative, and he can’t have revelations like this being published. What to do then? Blow up the buildings where the stories are written!
I think we have our answer.
Politically incorrect version highlighting apartheid and ethnic cleansing
Incomplete draft attempt at a more balanced, less sensationalist Israel/Palestine analysis