[News] Mainstream media finally reports on Gaza famine but won’t admit Israel is deliberately responsible

Sun Mar 24 13:03:21 EDT 2024

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/mainstream-media-finally-reports-on-gaza-famine-but-wont-admit-israel-is-deliberately-responsible/?ml_recipient=116698667884217626&ml_link=116698567788201423&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-03-24&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Mainstream media finally reports on Gaza famine but won’t admit Israel is
deliberately responsible By James North
<https://mondoweiss.net/author/james-north/> March 23, 2024
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/mainstream-media-finally-reports-on-gaza-famine-but-wont-admit-israel-is-deliberately-responsible/>
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[image: 060324_KhanYunis_BT_0024.jpg]

With each passing day, the alarm sirens about famine in Gaza are screaming
louder than ever, but the mainstream U.S. media continues to hide or
downplay Israel’s responsibility for the mass starvation.

Just the other day, one of the world’s leading experts on mass hunger, Alex
de Waal, said, in the *Guardian*
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/we-are-about-to-witness-the-most-intense-famine-since-world-war-ii-in-gaza>:
“We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second
world war.” de Waal is no ordinary commenter. He has spent decades
researching and writing about famine in various parts of Africa, including
Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, and he is known for being rigorous and
cautious.

The sub-head on his article was also ominous:

Gaza’s health crisis has its own dreadful momentum. Even if the shooting
ends today and the aid trucks begin to roll, the dying will carry on for
some time.”

So how is the U.S. media covering this danger? In fairness, there have been
some articles, especially recently. The *New York Times* did a front-page
report
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/world/middleeast/gaza-famine-israel-hamas.html?searchResultPosition=3>
on March 18, which cited a global authority of food experts who did warn
that “famine is imminent” and that Gaza is on the edge of a “major
acceleration of deaths and malnutrition.” Others have also covered the
starvation threat.

But the mainstream media failure, which is so comprehensive and systematic
that it must be deliberate, is its refusal to blame Israel for the looming
mass starvation. This coverup extended across nearly all the major outlets,
but one particular example in the *New York Times* illustrates it
perfectly. Two days after its front-page article, the *Times *ran a long
analysis
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/20/world/middleeast/gaza-aid-delivery.html?searchResultPosition=1>
which purported to answer the question: “Why Isn’t More Aid Getting to
Gazans?” The report appeared thorough, and included detailed interactive
maps.

In fact, the *Times* analysis was a model of dishonesty, meant to shift
blame away from Israel, and it merits a closer dissection. Immediately, in
the 5th paragraph, bias jumps out. It says “Just two entry points into the
territory [of Gaza] are regularly operating, both in the south.” Here’s the
truth: “Israel only allows two entry points, which are distant from
northern Gaza, where hunger is greatest.”

A little further along, we learn that Israel inspects all trucks entering
Gaza, and that “the inspection process is often lengthy.” Down in paragraph
16, we get more detail: The U.N. relief agency tells the paper that
“convoluted Israeli inspections hold up aid.” And: “Trucks sit in
miles-long lines at every checkpoint and are forced to start over if even
one item inside is rejected.” Then: “U.S. and British officials have said
that critical goods, such as water filters and scissors included in medical
kits for treating children, are being rejected because they could be used
for military purposes.”

The *Times* then trots out an Israeli spokesman, and gives him 3 paragraphs
to deny that Israel is “preventing the flow of aid.”

That’s it! But this is precisely where good reporters would get to work.
Here’s just one suggestion, and the *Times* wouldn’t even have to leave
Israel to do it. Go to various human rights groups there. Start asking
around; you will surely find people who are willing to tell you that Israel
is deliberately slowing those aid trucks. Promise them anonymity, and put
them in the paper. You assigned 4 reporters to this story. Surely you have
enough people to do the legwork.

What’s more, nowhere does the long *Times* analysis explain that Jewish
supremacists on the Israeli side of the border are also blocking the aid
trucks from crossing into Gaza.

The *Times* moves on, and finds yet another way to downplay Israel’s
responsibility for the famine: “The threats of desperate crowds and Israeli
gunfire make the transfer of food to people dangerous.”  It repeats its
coverup of the February 29 Flour Massacre
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/here-are-the-latest-examples-of-the-astonishing-dishonest-nytimes-coverage-of-israels-war-on-gaza/>,
in which more than a hundred Gazans died. It first cites Israel’s
explanation, that most victims died in a stampede, and only then says there
was “shooting by Israel forces.” You decide.

Right toward the end, the *Times* says that the U.S. promise to build a
pier to unload food aid and other supplies will take 2 months, and notes,
without comment, that “Gaza does not have a functioning port.” Which
country prevented Gazans from constructing such a port?

The *Times* pattern of exonerating Israel by deploying both sides bias is
repeated in other outlets. For instance, the PBS News Hour quoted
<https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/experts-warn-of-imminent-famine-in-gaza-with-lack-of-aid-reaching-palestinians>
an Israeli spokesman’s denial that it is slowing the aid *before* even
letting a UNICEF official make the allegation. National Public Radio
followed the same playbook
<https://www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1240108446/experts-say-gaza-faces-imminent-famine-israel-says-that-is-a-myth>,
although it did at least contact Alex de Waal for a report
<https://www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1240304812/as-famine-looms-in-gaza-we-look-at-why-modern-famines-are-a-man-made-disaster>
.

But arguably the worst offender, unsurprisingly, was CNN. It ran a 4:16
report
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/23/world/video/karadsheh-pkg-fst-032312a-seg2-cnni-world-fast>
(on CNN International, not the more popular U.S. version), which did show
Gazans who are hungry. But, astonishingly, CNN only had one single sentence
suggesting that Israel was causing the famine. Here (at 2:16) is what CNN
said: “Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon of war, something
it denies.” The *Guardian*’s recent report
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/the-guardian-exposes-how-cnn-slants-the-gaza-news/>
about the extraordinary bias at CNN is obviously still valid.

(The *Washington Post*, to its credit, was an exception to the whitewash
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/03/gaza-aid-convoy-israel-war/>.
Back on March 3, Claire Parker’s headline said: “How Israel’s restrictions
on aid put Gaza on the brink of famine.”)

Back to the long *Times* analysis. It probably regrets that it allowed
comments. Here were 2 of the top “Readers’ Picks:”

“A lot of words in this article that don’t say the obvious: Israel is
intentionally starving these people and preventing aid from entering.”

And:

“This article is unbelievable. Every single aid agency — and I sincerely
think this is without exception — has stated that the problem with getting
aid into Gaza is ISRAEL.”

(This site ran a long comprehensive post
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/un-expert-israel-is-engineering-famine-in-gaza/>
on “how Israel is engineering famine in Gaza.”)
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