The Israel-Palestine conflict has unveiled the blatant hypocrisy of western media. Instead of being a neutral observer, western mainstream media is acting as party to the conflict. Like the Russia-Ukraine War, Palestine-Israel conflict is also being fought at two fronts, first is on ground, whereas the second front is on mainstream and social media. Main tools being used at the second front are propaganda and narrative building. False and unverified news regarding Hamas and portrayal of Israel as a victim of ‘terrorism’ has ended what little credibility remained. This shows the amount of control governments have on media houses, and certainly puts a big question mark on the spirit of freedom of speech in so called established western democracies.

Western media would spend the whole day demonizing the Russian regime as it bombed Ukraine’s settled areas not so long ago. Victims of Russian bombing was given most of the screentime, and Ukrainian soldiers and militias were being interviewed and documented to spin narratives in their favour. Western media’s morals have spun 360 degrees as innocent Palestinian civilians are being bombed indiscriminately by Israel’s Airforce. Instead of showing collapsing towers and retrieved bodies of children, dead and alive, victims of Hamas rocket attacks and captured Israeli soldiers are being given more attention. Palestinians are being demonized, portrayed as terrorists or their sympathizers, while the Israeli occupation forces are shown as the ones fighting for a just cause.

Most of the main-stream media houses have brazenly ignored journalistic ethics and described the ongoing atrocities as “right to self-defense”. Picking on stories lacking authenticity, these channels have been instrumental in propagating misinformation and fake news, somewhat successfully veiling the ongoing humanitarian crisis and undermining the Palestinian cause. The bias in reporting has can be seen in the vernacular that is used to describe both sides of war. The amount of coverage the Palestinians receive and the terminology used to describe their plight has been instrumental in shaping narratives. Israeli casualties are described as “killed in rocket attacks”, while the hundreds of dead Palestinians are simply a “death toll”. Moreover, Western media outlets are often seen reporting the war without quoting context, thus dehumanizing the suffering of the innocent Palestinians.

A comparison of the Russia-Ukraine war and that of the Israel-Palestine conflict further exposes the hypocrisy of the Western media. Throughout the conflict, headlines such as “Russia Batters Ukraine”, “Ukrainians: They Died by a Bridge in Ukraine, This Is Their Story” often made it to the front pages of leading dailies. This not only exposes the double-standards of the West but also that the powerful can remain insulted from accountability. The ongoing reporting of the Israel-Palestine war has therefore exposed unjust favoritism prevalent across all tiers of Western media houses which continue to blatantly propagate the narrative, “some lives are more sacred than others”. The impunity with which Israel continues to commit war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank is shocking. Not only they have international media outlets on their side, but they have also threatened to send back United Nations staff present in Tel Aviv for pointing out human rights violations.

The US, UK, France, and Germany’s unequivocal support for Israel’s cruelty is another spot of bother. Instead of playing the role of responsible world and regional powers, these countries have only added fuel to fire. The Israel-Palestine conflict is now acquiring a global nature, with veto powers being used by rivals against each other in the UNSC. A deadlock in the UNSC and among great powers such as China, Russia, US and its allies in Europe will only take the situation towards further escalation. The UNSC had a choice between US draft giving a license to Israel to kill more Palestinians and conduct a ground operation in Gaza, and a Russian draft, calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Both drafts condemned firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel, but the draft proposed by the US ignored Israel’s blatant violations of International Law. This is what the international media will never show. The US and its allies, and the western media simply do not care about Palestinian children.

As days pass and deadlock persists, there will be more bombing, more killings, and more miseries poured upon Palestinians. The Netanyahu regime and its powerful allies in the US and Europe including compromised media houses are taking this conflict towards a point of no return. There will be backlash and there will be blowbacks. The role of western media in all this could be anything but journalism. They have become mouthpieces of the rightwing Israeli regime, that seeks to gain political advantage by invoking false narrative around religious sentiments and nationalism. What is happening in Palestine is a textbook example of fascism and populism.