Just as Nazi propaganda desensitized the
German public to Jewish suffering, Western media’s refusal to speak the truth about Israel’s violence against Palestinians normalizes their mass murder.
By Fareed Khan
On July 17, 2025, an Israeli airstrike severely damaged Gaza’s
last remaining Catholic church, a sanctuary sheltering the elderly and
children amidst a relentless 21 month military assault. The attack, which killed
dozens and severely damaged a rare Christian landmark in the besieged enclave,
garnered fleeting attention in Western media outlets like The New York Times
and BBC. However, this coverage stands in stark contrast to the near silence surrounding
the systematic destruction of more than a thousand mosques and the desecration
of Muslim cemeteries in Gaza by Israeli forces since October 2023. This
selective outrage is not an anomaly but a manifestation of a deeply embedded
anti-Palestinian racism
in Western news media, often termed the "Palestinian exception."
This phenomenon—characterized by biased,
negative coverage of Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation while
amplifying positive narratives about Israel—echoes the dehumanizing propaganda
of Nazi Germany’s news media towards Jews in the 1930s. The Western
media’s role in dehumanizing Palestinians, as explored in scholarly
analyses of how narratives about marginalized groups are shaped, enables
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. This systemic bias, which portrays Palestinians as less deserving of empathy and humanity, demands that news
corporations and their executives one day face legal accountability for their criminal
decisions, and provide restitution to Palestinians for their complicity in the
Gaza genocide, the way Jews were given restitution for the Holocaust.
The Palestinian Exception: A Legacy of Bias
This bias is not new but has been documented for decades, with analysis showing that a majority of news stories on Israeli violence against Palestinians failed to mention that incidents occurred in occupied Palestinian territory, erasing the context of Israel’s illegal occupation. Similarly, a Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) study of NPR’s coverage during the Second Intifada (2000–2005) showed that while Israeli and Palestinian deaths occurred in similar numbers, NPR reported eight out of ten Israeli deaths but only three out of ten Palestinian deaths, creating a skewed perception of the conflict’s death toll. Palestinian voices continue to be given a fraction of the airtime or column space afforded to pro-Israel perspectives today. A 2023 report by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring noted that British media frequently framed stories from an Israeli viewpoint, often without verifying Israeli claims, and without giving Palestinian voices equal coverage.
The Language of Dehumanization
This double standard reflects what Palestinian-American academic Edward Said described in his 1997 book Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World as the media’s role in constructing a dehumanized image of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians. Said argued that Western news media portrays people from these communities as inherently violent and irrational, reinforcing stereotypes that justify their marginalization. He talked about how the media shapes public perceptions and selectively filters information to control what people know or don’t know about Islam and Muslims.
This framing is evident in the coverage of the Gaza genocide, where Palestinian deaths are reported as numbers, often prefaced with qualifiers like “as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry,” casting doubt on their credibility, while Israeli casualty figures are presented as authoritative. Such journalistic choices desensitize audiences to Palestinian suffering, dehumanizing them to most Western audiences.
Historical Context and Media Silence
Western media’s omission of critical historical context further entrenches this anti-Palestinian bias. Few outlets acknowledge that Hamas, portrayed as the epitome of Palestinian terrorism, came to be a viable political force in Gaza through Israeli support and funding beginning in the 1980s into the 2000s. The goal being to undermine the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and derail the Oslo Peace Accords. This strategic backing was intended to prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state, yet it is rarely mentioned, allowing media to frame Hamas as an existential threat without acknowledging Israeli complicity. This erasure distorts the narrative and obscures the root causes of Palestinian resistance.
The destruction of Gaza’s cultural and religious sites further illustrates this bias. The systematic targeting of mosques, Muslim cemeteries, schools and universities by Israeli forces echoes the Nazi destruction of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in 1930s Germany and during the Holocaust. Yet, while the bombing of Gaza’s Catholic church garnered some coverage in Western media, the obliteration of Islamic sites has been largely ignored. This selective focus reflects a racist and bigoted cultural hierarchy at the executive level where Muslim and Palestinian suffering is deemed less newsworthy.
The Palestinian Exception: A Legacy of Bias
The bombing of the Gaza Catholic church briefly pierced Western media’s consciousness, likely because it resonated with Christian audiences in the West, and because Pope Leo felt compelled to respond. However, the deliberate destruction
of over 1,200 mosques and desecration of Muslim cemeteries in Gaza by Israeli forces since
October 2023 has received scant attention. This disparity exemplifies the
Palestinian exception, where Palestinian suffering is systematically
marginalized or ignored while Israeli narratives are elevated. Studies, such as
one by The
Intercept analyzing over 1,000 articles from major US outlets like The New
York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times from October to
November 2023, reveal a clear pattern: Israeli casualties were covered with
emotive language like “massacre” or “slaughter,” while Palestinian deaths were
reported in clinical, passive terms, often as mere statistics. Furthermore,
during this period, mentions of antisemitism in these outlets outnumbered those
of Islamophobia by a ratio of 7:1, despite a significant surge
in anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab hate crimes in the US, surpassing that of the period after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
This bias is not new but has been documented for decades, with analysis showing that a majority of news stories on Israeli violence against Palestinians failed to mention that incidents occurred in occupied Palestinian territory, erasing the context of Israel’s illegal occupation. Similarly, a Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) study of NPR’s coverage during the Second Intifada (2000–2005) showed that while Israeli and Palestinian deaths occurred in similar numbers, NPR reported eight out of ten Israeli deaths but only three out of ten Palestinian deaths, creating a skewed perception of the conflict’s death toll. Palestinian voices continue to be given a fraction of the airtime or column space afforded to pro-Israel perspectives today. A 2023 report by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring noted that British media frequently framed stories from an Israeli viewpoint, often without verifying Israeli claims, and without giving Palestinian voices equal coverage.
The Language of Dehumanization
Western
media’s language in reporting on Palestinians often perpetuates
anti-Palestinian tropes. The phrase “Israel’s right to defend itself” is
commonly used, framing Israeli military actions—frequently disproportionate and
targeting Palestinian civilians—as justified. Conversely, Palestinian
resistance to Israeli occupation is routinely labelled “terrorism,” with groups
like Hamas demonized without historical context. For instance, following the
October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, outlets like CNN, BBC, and Canadian news media widely
broadcast Israel’s
lie about babies being beheaded and burned in ovens—claims later debunked by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. These reports fuelled outrage and justified Israel’s response, which,
by July 2025, has killed
nearly 69,000 Palestinians, 30% of them children. Moreover, Western
reporters often subject Palestinian interviewees to aggressive questioning,
such as “Do you condemn Hamas?” while Israeli interviewees face no similar
scrutiny about their government’s criminal actions, and their statements are
frequently accepted without verification, the way the “beheaded babies” lie
was.
This double standard reflects what Palestinian-American academic Edward Said described in his 1997 book Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World as the media’s role in constructing a dehumanized image of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians. Said argued that Western news media portrays people from these communities as inherently violent and irrational, reinforcing stereotypes that justify their marginalization. He talked about how the media shapes public perceptions and selectively filters information to control what people know or don’t know about Islam and Muslims.
This framing is evident in the coverage of the Gaza genocide, where Palestinian deaths are reported as numbers, often prefaced with qualifiers like “as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry,” casting doubt on their credibility, while Israeli casualty figures are presented as authoritative. Such journalistic choices desensitize audiences to Palestinian suffering, dehumanizing them to most Western audiences.
Historical Context and Media Silence
Western media’s omission of critical historical context further entrenches this anti-Palestinian bias. Few outlets acknowledge that Hamas, portrayed as the epitome of Palestinian terrorism, came to be a viable political force in Gaza through Israeli support and funding beginning in the 1980s into the 2000s. The goal being to undermine the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and derail the Oslo Peace Accords. This strategic backing was intended to prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state, yet it is rarely mentioned, allowing media to frame Hamas as an existential threat without acknowledging Israeli complicity. This erasure distorts the narrative and obscures the root causes of Palestinian resistance.
The destruction of Gaza’s cultural and religious sites further illustrates this bias. The systematic targeting of mosques, Muslim cemeteries, schools and universities by Israeli forces echoes the Nazi destruction of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in 1930s Germany and during the Holocaust. Yet, while the bombing of Gaza’s Catholic church garnered some coverage in Western media, the obliteration of Islamic sites has been largely ignored. This selective focus reflects a racist and bigoted cultural hierarchy at the executive level where Muslim and Palestinian suffering is deemed less newsworthy.
This selective focus reflects a racist and bigoted cultural hierarchy at the executive level in news rooms, where Muslim and Palestinian suffering is deemed less newsworthy. As Said noted, Western media operates within a framework that views Arab civilian deaths as an acceptable price for Israeli security.
Parallels with Nazi Propaganda
The parallels between Western media’s anti-Palestinian bias and Nazi Germany’s propaganda against Jews are chilling. In the 1930s, Nazi media portrayed Jews as threats to German society, using the most egregious stereotypes and selective reporting to justify discrimination, dehumanization and violence. Similarly, Western media’s framing of Palestinians as inherently violent, as "terrorists", or complicit in their own suffering—through antagonistic questions or by downplaying Israeli crimes—rationalizes their subjugation. Just as Nazi propaganda desensitized the German public to Jewish suffering, Western media’s refusal to label Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, despite affirmations from top genocide and Holocaust scholars, normalizes the mass killing of Palestinians.
Amnesty International’s 2024 report concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, citing deliberate conditions aimed at the physical destruction of Palestinians, including mass displacement and infrastructure devastation. Yet, major outlets like The New York Times and BBC avoid using the term “genocide” in their reporting, with Times internal memos instructing journalists to refrain from using terms like “ethnic cleansing” or “occupied territory”. This linguistic sanitization mirrors Nazi media’s use of language to obscure Nazi crimes, ensuring public detachment from the human toll.
The Global Recognition Gap
The media’s refusal to recognize Palestine as a state further exemplifies this bias. While 149 countries, including most of the Global South, recognize Palestinian statehood, Western media often avoids the term “Palestine,” aligning with the US-led Western alliance. This linguistic erasure delegitimizes Palestinian identity and aspirations, reinforcing their dehumanization. Furthermore, Western media’s biased framing of Palestinian stories reduces them to mere victims or terrorists, never as people with agency a right to self-determination, or struggling against the longest and most brutal military occupation in modern history.
Accountability and Justice
Western media’s complicity in anti-Palestinian racism and the Gaza genocide demands accountability. News corporations and their executives have not only failed to uphold journalistic ethics and integrity, but have actively contributed to the dehumanization of Palestinians, thereby supporting Israel's racist anti-Palestinian narratives, and enabled its violations of international law. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in 2024 ordering Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, yet these rulings are often misrepresented in Western coverage. For example, a Wall Street Journal headline falsely claimed the ICJ rejected a ceasefire demand, when the real story was that it had found a “plausible” basis for genocide allegations.
Just as Nazi propagandists faced justice at Nuremberg for inciting hatred against Jews, Western news executives who played a role in perpetuating anti-Palestinian narratives leading to genocide must one day stand in a courtroom and face justice. Their role in amplifying Israeli propaganda, suppressing Palestinian voices, and sanitizing genocide parallels the media’s complicity in historical atrocities. News corporations like The New York Times, BBC, CNN, and CTV Globe Media, Global News, the CBC, and the Post Media group in Canada, should be held liable for compensation and restitution to Palestinians for their part in enabling the Palestinian genocide. Legal precedents, such as reparations paid by German companies and Swiss banks complicit in the Holocaust, suggest a framework for holding Western media accountable for their role in dehumanization and violence.
The bombing of Gaza’s last Catholic church is a stark reminder of the Palestinian exception, where Western media selectively highlights certain tragedies while ignoring others based on cultural, racial and religious prejudice. This anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, rooted in decades of skewed coverage, dehumanizes Palestinians and has enabled Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Edward Said’s Covering Islam
remains a prescient warning of how media shapes narratives to marginalize
entire populations. By prioritizing Israeli narratives, amplifying unverified
claims, and erasing Palestinian context, Western media mirrors the propaganda
tactics of media in Nazi Germany, desensitizing audiences to Palestinian
suffering.
The time for accountability is approaching when Western news corporations and their executives must face justice for their complicity, and ultimately provide restitution to Palestinians for their role supporting and enabling Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian people. Only through such reckoning can the cycle of dehumanization of Palestinians be broken, a more truthful narrative about the oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people emerge, and decades of pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian propaganda be rewritten.
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
The time for accountability is approaching when Western news corporations and their executives must face justice for their complicity, and ultimately provide restitution to Palestinians for their role supporting and enabling Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian people. Only through such reckoning can the cycle of dehumanization of Palestinians be broken, a more truthful narrative about the oppression and subjugation of the Palestinian people emerge, and decades of pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian propaganda be rewritten.
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
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