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How the Media Manufactured a "Genocide"

(Tablet) Zach Goldberg - References to "genocide" have reached unprecedented highs across numerous major news outlets. I tracked annual coverage associating genocide with well-documented historical cases, including Rwanda (1994), Darfur (2003-2008), Bosnia (1995), Myanmar (2017-present), and the Yazidis (2014-2017). The results were striking. Coverage linking Israel with genocide has surged far beyond every other agreed-upon historical case of genocide. In the New York Times, articles pairing Israel and genocide reached levels nine times higher than the peak for Rwanda and six times greater than for Darfur. If Israel's war in Gaza qualifies as genocide, it would constitute a striking historical outlier: perhaps the first such case of genocide triggered by a mass terrorist attack involving the slaughter of civilians and the taking of hostages; the first in which the genocider permitted food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to flow to its purported victims; and potentially the only instance in which the perpetrators lacked any prior plan or ideological commitment to extermination. If the new math of genocide is correct, then we have a press teaching a large public that warfare of any kind is always a hideous crime, even when waged in response to murderous attacks by genocidal maniacs on defenseless civilians. Or there is to be one rule for Jews and a different rule for everyone else. The unprecedented volume of atrocity rhetoric attached to Israel in mainstream outlets broadcasts the idea that Jews are collectively and unambiguously guilty of the darkest of crimes. It is unsurprising that assertions of collective guilt on the part of "Israelis" and "Zionists" bleed into even broader attitudes toward Jews, resulting in recent deadly attacks. The writer is a Research Faculty member at Florida State University's Institute for Governance and Civics (IGC).
2025-06-08 00:00:00
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