United Nations Media Seminar on Peace in Middle East – Afternoon Session
(Reissued as received.)
GENEVA, 1 November (United Nations Office at Geneva) — The thirtieth United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East this afternoon resumed and concluded its activities, holding a session on the topic of Behind the Headlines of Gaza: Media Challenges and Perspectives.
Journalists, media experts, policymakers and scholars gathered for the meeting, held in Room XXVI at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Organized by the United Nations Department of Global Communications, the Seminar takes place over one day, with sessions discussing the themes of Freedom of the Press and Safety of Journalists in a Time of War; and Behind the Headlines of Gaza: Media Challenges and Perspectives.
Statements
Nanette Braun, Director, Communication and Campaigns Service, Campaigns and Country Operations Division, United Nations Department of Global Communications, moderator, presenting the session and the panellists, said this morning’s session had already heard about the terrible loss of life in Gaza, and this afternoon’s should cover what it meant to undertake the essential task of reporting from Gaza.
Omar Baddar, Political Analyst and Digital Producer, said Gaza was witnessing an atrocity of historical proportions. The reason why the United Nations existed was to stop this sort of thing happening: and yet it was. An unprecedented number of United Nations workers were being killed, an unprecedented number of journalists being targeted and murdered, and an unprecedented number of children being killed. There was an unprecedented targeting of medical workers and engineers being targeted; an entire society was being killed. There was a systematic targeting of children being shot by sniper bullets directly in the head and the chest, as reported by doctors. There was a deliberate mass murder of children; and yet, the countries who were most vocal in defence of human rights were remaining silent. This was because the extent of media coverage had been utterly grotesque, framing Israel as the protagonist, and the spectrum of opinions ranged from “Israel is the good guys, Palestine is the bad guys”, and to “Hamas is the bad guys” — nowhere was there the truth that Israel was an apartheid regime, imposing an illegal system of apartheid on Palestinians. This was a deliberate war on the Palestinian population, and this also was nowhere to be seen in the media.
This was the crisis in Western countries: the contrast between the coverage of Russian Federation and Ukraine, contrasted to the coverage of Israel and Palestine, was incredible. Headlines would leave one confused as to the real situation of Palestine, as there was no context given, namely that Israel had no right to be in the Gaza Strip. Hamas was given as the pretext — and yet, Hamas was not present in the West Bank, where Israel acted with total impunity, killing and murdering civilians, with a complete abdication of responsibility among American journalists as to how they reported this. Every headline read “this many Palestinians died in Gaza”, with no mention of the perpetrators, as though these bullets fell from the sky. Most tragic was the lack of accountability for American officials about how the United States was directly responsible for the horror that Israel was imposing on Gaza, due to unrestrained American diplomatic support, supporting Israel unreservedly in international fora. This was the level of impunity that the United States provided to Israel, which was the largest recipient of its military funding, which it was expanding in a very drastic way. And yet, when American politicians were interviewed, there was never a question as to “why are you continuing to fund war crimes”, instead the question was formulated to ignore the fact that a historic atrocity was occurring. Until the media was held accountable for this, then people would continue to ignore the fact that the solution was simple and straightforward: as long as Israel continued to rule Palestinians, denying them humanity and basic human rights, then there would be no end to the conflict.
People had no future to look forward to in Gaza and had not long before this instance. Palestinians were being denied their fundamental humanity. What was immediately needed was a ceasefire yesterday — it was needed now, and there was no time to waste. It had to be imposed — it was not up to Israel to decide when it was going to cease to slaughter people, and this could only happen if the media changed to discuss it in a more meaningful and straightforward fashion. Giving the one country immunity had caused a massive undermining of the international humanitarian order.
Anat Saragusti, Director, Press Freedom, Union of Journalists in Israel, said she did not represent the State, Government, or policy of the State of Israel. She had been an active journalist for many years and knew the situation on the ground very well. The role of the Israeli media in covering the war in Gaza and the challenges that the media was facing over the last two years in terms of the attempts of the Government to destroy the independent media were her topics. The Israeli media covered the war in Gaza, but did not cover the humanitarian crisis, nor did it cover the Palestinian side. The IDF spokesman decided who had access to Gaza, deciding where they could embed and who they could speak to, and everything was subject to military censorship. At the end of this chain and storyflow was a limited story. The media did not show the Israeli audience the reality on the ground as it should, and did not address this at all, making the Israeli audience entirely ignorant of what was happening on the ground, leaving them indifferent or believing that the current conflict was entirely deserved.
If an Israeli journalist dared to criticize the policy of the army or the policy and strategy of the war, they were smeared in all social media outlets, making it very challenging for them to express something that was not aligned with the patriotic attitude of the majority. The current situation was for Israeli journalists and war correspondents to be cheerleaders for the troops on the ground, aligning themselves with the general sentiment, drowning out all other voices. This made Israelis unable to understand why the world was shouting for a ceasefire, blaming it on anti-Semitism, as they did not understand or see the full picture.
There was no access for foreign and independent media into Gaza, despite attempts. The army was saying that it was unsafe for journalists, but this was unacceptable, as it prevented independent media from collecting evidence of what was happening on the ground. The Israeli Government had a plan to destroy independent media through, among other tools, legislation against the media, allowing it to shut down any media outlet that might endanger the State of Israel. It also sought to destroy public broadcasting, aiming to defund and weaken it, as public broadcasting was independent, funded by taxpayers money. A law had been passed which would ensure promotion of right-wing channels that promoted conspiracy theories, lies, and the position of the Government. There was a smear campaign against certain channels and media outlets, as well as of specific journalists. The freedom of the press was being threatened in Israel now by authoritarianism.
Mohammad Ali Alnsour, Chief, Middle East and North Africa Section, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said since 2008 the OHCHR had produced mandated reports on the Israeli occupation in Palestine, and across all of these had always had a permanent item, namely the targeting of media workers and journalists. However, a situation of impunity persisted. The foreign media was unable to cover the situation of hostilities in Gaza. The media had very important roles in starting the accountability process, starting with documenting crimes and violations, then moving into investigation, then into accountability and the achievement of peace; unfortunately, this was not the case in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for several decades. The Israeli authorities had decided to suspend the visas of the OHCHR staff, who were constrained to work from Jordan.
The lack of accountability of the Israeli forces was important. This was a context of foreign occupation, and thus came under international humanitarian law, under which the occupying forces had an obligation to protect civilians and also journalists and the media. The High Commissioner had said that there was a “new normal” that would accept violations, impunity, and changing the norms of the international law and international order. The interpretation was that it was “collateral damage” to kill journalists, and this was being heard from senior politicians every day, saying that it was acceptable to kill civilians to make an infinitesimal gain. If this was the case in one context, that one State was being allowed to violate all the norms, then what was the future of the international order and of people as a whole, Mr. Alnsour asked. The United Nations was a reflection of its Member States, and without a political commitment to resolve the situations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, it would be impossible to resolve the situation. Israel had shrunk the civic space and limited the media, in a way that was common across the region, using vague terminology to silence dissenters from within society as well as from outside. Next week there would be a comprehensive report from OHCHR on the first six months of the conflict, including the attacks on and killings of journalists in that period.
Lila Hassan, independent investigative journalist, said almost immediately after 7 October, it was clear that unprecedented violence would be Israel’s response. The American media was told to assign blame to Hamas for the actions of Israel's military. Economically, journalism was at a breaking point, with lay-offs and less desire and room for diversity of thought, and going against the grain to publish stories that were sympathetic to the Palestinian plight was seen as supporting terrorism. Those who had experienced oppression and undergone the reality of war were under scrutiny for not being impartial. The very notion of objectivity had violated the fundamental rule of journalism: telling the truth. Editors across the world had allowed biases for imperialism and supremacy to hold sway, introducing doubt where there was certainty. And yet outlets did not disclose where journalists or editors had been in the Israeli military.
This bias had also uncovered the double standards of solidarity, with a lack of condemnation for the killings of journalists in Gaza, many of whom had been ignored and not received coverage. Journalists had been murdered, and then portrayed as Hamas militants. Gaza was the most dangerous setting for journalists in the world because of the activities of the Israeli military. And still, journalists were silenced and smeared, accused of working actively with Hamas. This bias was also favourable towards Israel, with United States media actively parroting Israeli talking points, reporting controversial sourcing and evidence that had been fuelled by sources and stories provided by Israel, even though these sources sometimes later came forward to say they had been incorrect. These failures and biases showed the context in which journalists had been working in the past year. A bias of military supremacy had clouded United States media reporting of their own military support. The White House continued to turn away from clear human rights abuses, saying it would wait for Israel to investigate itself before it withheld aid. The media did not question critically enough its own Government’s activities.
There were reasonable grounds to suspect that the crime of genocide was taking place in Gaza — this was a reality and had been reinforced time and again. This word was not controversial, it was a fact, and should have been included in all reports, giving context to readers. Journalists violated, and continued to violate, basic truth, by ignoring this, impeding the ability to investigate crimes and the situation of oppressive colonialism. Massacres and mass obliteration of civilian infrastructure had never been so well documented on social media, and whilst there was a communications blackout imposed by the military, Palestinian and other journalists had reported on mass evacuations, among other violations. Journalists had a duty to report and document: if reporting on the Israeli military had negative impacts on sources of revenue, then those sources of revenue were a threat.
Speakers then took the floor in the context of the discussion, raising, among other issues, a request to discuss how attitudes from media organizations towards journalists who had been working for them for a long time shifted after 7 October had changed, if at all. Who was still paying for the work of journalists in Gaza? Ms. Hassan responded to this, saying that there had been a discussion on this in the American media, but it was newsrooms that hired fixers and independent stringers in Gaza, although these were very low-status roles, with no promise of protection, such as evacuation, or even a helmet or flak jacket. Mr. Baddar added that MSNBC had put its three Muslim reporters on hiatus after the events of 7 October. There was pressure put on media outlets, including accusations of anti-Semitism, ensuring that there was a cost should they attempt to provide any alternative points of view to the Israeli one.
The session thus ended, with Ms. Braun thanking all panellists for their attempts to ensure that the world was witness to the events occurring, and commended the immense courage of all journalists covering the conflict, as they faced incredible risks and horrors. Their legacy must not be forgotten. The war continued, and had even expanded. She hoped that the next meeting in 2025 would be under better circumstances.