(Newsweek) Josh Levs - For decades, many news organizations have framed their coverage of the Middle East with an anti-Israel bias. Many even have rules to enforce this bias. I know because as a journalist at NPR and CNN, I saw these rules in action. Take the term "occupation." As the CIA World Factbook explains, there are numerous "occupied" territories around the world. Meanwhile, Israel left Gaza in 2005. And the Palestinian Authority wrote to the UN last year that the "Israeli occupation" period ended in 1994. Yet news organizations still describe Gaza and the West Bank as "the occupied territories." In that phrase, the word "the" indicates that there is one, and only one, "occupation" on Earth to be concerned about. For years, many news organizations have refused to call Palestinian terrorists what they are: terrorists. Yet they freely use the term "terror" in reporting on similar attacks literally everywhere else in the world, except when groups like Hamas attack Jews. Try searching the words "terrorist group" at npr.org. You'll see the term used freely, but avoided like the proverbial plague when it comes to Israel. News agencies have insisted in dozens of reports that, until the Trump administration, the U.S. consistently considered any and all settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law. But in making this claim, they ignored the fact that President Ronald Reagan said the exact opposite - and no presidential administration contradicted him for decades until 2016. This is the kind of bias that today's young people were raised on. They have been inundated with anti-Israel messaging throughout their lives and have soaked it up while in college. As "mainstream" news outlets seek the sources of this violent radicalization endangering our country, it's time for them to look inward.
2024-05-12 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive