Palestine, Israel and the Third Side: International Humanitarian Law (Part I)

Daily Kos

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) has been the third rail of Western journalism in its coverage of Palestine-Israel for decades and no more present than in its coverage of the Gaza Massacre and Israel’s invasion of the Strip.

Bear in mind that Israel is overtly inhibiting the press, blocking the foreign press from reporting on Gaza outside of what ‘officials say’, as CNN’s Campbell Brown has the courage to call on Israel to “allow journalists the access [they] need to tell the story with accuracy and with context”.

I shot at The New York Times yesterday for their ignorant, negligent regurgitation of Israeli Newspeak to deliberately misinform their reader and the masses as the ‘paper of record’ that contains ‘all the news that’s fit to print’, so I thought it would be fitting to go to them for the Newspeak:

The New York Times – “Analysis of the Gaza Conflict” – 07 Jan 09 (2:30):

Monday, Shihab Rattansi confronted former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman, who is reported to have drafted Israel’s Newspeak:

al Jazeera – “Israel’s Gaza media strategy” – 05 Jan 09 (5:28):

Missing from all of this jibber-jabber are Israel’s international law violations because IHL classifies Israel as an occupier since 1967 and that the US has blocked every resolution to condemn Israel’s occupation. This allows for spectators to easily ignore moral relativism when the spectator exercises judgment: that judging someone as beneath the standard we apply to them loses credibility when those same standards aren’t applied to the ‘we’.

Robert Parry spells out the dangers of this hypocrisy well for consortiumnews.com and Jeffrey Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal attacks the ‘top 5 lies about Israel’s assault on Gaza’, but there’s still something missing — those contracts which the international community to form objective judgments as opposed to subjective judgments of low-credibility: IHL, the UN Charter, and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Real News Network (TRNN) surpasses The NYT is credibility on this issue, interviewing Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., specializing in Middle East and United Nations issues:

TRNN interviews Phyllis Bennis – “Part One: Historical Amnesia and Gaza” 06 Jan 09 (8:04):

TRNN interviews Phyllis Bennis – “Part Two: Israel and International Law” – 07 Jan 09 (8:57):

We posted another interview with Ms. Bennis concerning Gaza conducted by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! here.