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Selective Outrage: The World Looks Away from Syria's Atrocities but Fixates on Gaza

(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - For the most part, the world did not take much notice of the brutality of Syrian soldiers in the Druze region of Sweida. The first article about the situation to appear on the front page of the New York Times print edition was on July 17. That piece led not with the story of atrocities in Sweida, but "deadly airstrikes" launched by Israel in Damascus. In the 10 days since the incident that spurred the fighting in Syria that claimed more than 1,200 lives, the Times devoted more of its front page to stories and pictures about Gaza and Israel than to Sweida and Syria. In an age where pictures are more important than words, there were no pictures from Syria but two large pictures from Gaza on the Times front page during this period. The Times' lead story on Monday was "Israelis shoot dozens rushing for aid in Gaza," a piece that relied heavily on figures provided by Hamas, numbers Israel insists are significantly inflated. That same day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 205 people killed in Syria - more than the number cited in Gaza. Yet it was Gaza that led the front page. The disparity in international attention is predictable. Gaza leads the global conversation. The fighting in Syria, unless Israel is involved, struggles to get notice. Israel is held to different standards and is judged by a different measuring stick. Moreover, Hamas spokespeople - camouflaged as the Gaza Health Ministry - feed journalists a steady stream of data, images, and interviews. Gaza fits a frame the media loves: strong vs. weak. That David-and-Goliath template is easy to tell and emotionally resonant. Sweida? It's messy. Bedouin militias, Government loyalists, Druze fighters. No clear villain, no single victim group. It's complex, local, tribal. That makes it harder to explain and easier to ignore. Pro-Palestinian advocacy is highly organized, heavily funded (thank you, Qatar), and globally embedded - across university campuses, human rights organizations, and social media influencers. The Druze, on the other hand, have no such infrastructure. They're not backed by Gulf money, and they lack a global network of activists lobbying on their behalf. This is, ultimately, about what the world chooses to see and what it opts to ignore.
2025-07-22 00:00:00
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