Don’t Say Palestine

Brace yourself for this shocking news: The media is biased!

In all seriousness, anyone who has spent time reading and listening to independent media will have noticed the stark contrast between it and corporate-sponsored Western media. It’s like day and night. Independent media does things that journalists are supposed to do, like looking at both sides of the story and examining the facts instead of simply parroting what they’ve been told by those in power.

In the midst of Israel’s onslaught against Gaza in October 2023, The New York Times published a story claiming there was systematic rape committed against Israelis by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The Intercept thoroughly debunked this two-bit piece of journalism in February 2024.

In April 2024, The Intercept once again made headlines by exposing a leaked New York Times memo that advised its journalists to avoid using certain terms or phrases when reporting on Israel and Palestine, such as: genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupied territory, refugee camps, and Palestine.

Let’s take a brief look at the suppressed terms and phrases…

• Genocide: In mid-October 2023, Israeli historian Raz Segal said that “Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed.” Craig Mokhiber, the former United Nations Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated in late October 2023 that Israel’s war on Gaza was “a text-book case of genocide.” In late January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) determined that there was “plausible evidence” of Israel committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Yes, it’s a strong word and shouldn’t be used casually, but when you have human rights experts and the highest court in the world using the term, why can’t journalists use it?
• Ethnic Cleansing: While not as shocking a term as genocide, ethnic cleansing is still something that should be used with caution. But if the forcible expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes and villages to make way for the newly arrived Jewish settlers in 1948 was not ethnic cleansing, then what was it? Ilan Pappe — an Israeli historian — wrote a book titled The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine for crying out loud.
• Occupied Territory: Under international law, an occupied territory is generally understood to be one that is under the control of a foreign military. Palestinians were living in historical Palestine for generations upon generations. In 1967 the Israeli military took control over the West Bank, referring to it as Judea and Samaria. There are not only Israeli military bases and countless checkpoints that Palestinians in the West Bank have to deal with, but also illegal settlements for Israelis only, continued land grabs, and demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure. If this isn’t occupation, what is it exactly? United Nations Resolution 242 from November 1967 calls for the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” (emphasis added).
• Refugee Camps: News outlets and aid organizations have referred to Palestinians as refugees and their current living situations as refugee camps, including U.S. News and UNRWA, the latter of which states that there are 58 recognized Palestinian refugee camps. Much of the population in the Gaza Strip are refugees from other parts of historical Palestine. By eliminating the use of the term refugee camps, they may be trying to suggest that wherever Palestinians ended up is now their “forever home”, which attempts to deny them their fundamental human right to return to their original homes.
• Palestine: Restricting the use of Palestine is another attempt at denying the existence of Palestine and its people as a unique entity. It’s a bid at rewriting history to give the impression that the land was, and always will be, Israel. Since the anti-Palestine movement is in favor of censorship and restrictions on free speech, they might want to ban Shakespeare’s Othello from four centuries ago. And they might as well claim that ardent Israel supporter Harry Truman was anti-Semitic, despite being quick to the trigger in recognizing Israel.

Is The New York Times on Israel’s hasbara payroll, or are they afraid of the consequences of reporting the facts and humanizing Palestinians, instead opting to cover up and revise history to serve the Zionist agenda?