TODAY. Media double standards – Ukraine civilian casualties versus Gaza civilian casualties
| COMMENT. I have now been informed that The missile that struck the hospital in Ukraine has been identified as a Ukrainian air defense missile. Russia did not target a hospital. This is the tragic fact about air defense missiles. They are used to prevent an enemy missile from hitting a military target, but then whether they miss or hit their targets, the debris or the missile harms civilians. The side that uses the air defense missile has chosen to put civilians at risk in order to protect military assets. And what does it tell you about the propaganda system that this damage by an air defense missile, supplied by NATO, is misrepresented as a Russian atrocity “deliberately targeting civilians”? At this stage, I do not have a definite source for this. |
I want to be clear. The bombing of civilians is an atrocity. On July 8th, Russian missile attacks targeted cities across Ukraine. That included a strike that hit the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv. That is an atrocity. (27 civilians, including four children, were killed, and 117, including seven children, were injured.)
On July 9th, an Israeli airstrike targeted a school-turned-refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, the fourth school Israel’s military has bombed in as many days. That is an atrocity. (29 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded )
But – contrast the media coverage of these events:
For the Western media – The attack on Ukraine was first of all – a useful news item for ramping up support at the NATO meeting, for more weapons for Ukraine -“A NATO summit is getting under way in Washington, with support for Ukraine top of the agenda after a children’s hospital was hit by a Russian missile.”
Emotional coverage. Australia’s ABC News gave an emotional account: “The offensive on Monday blasted Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt paediatric hospital, where thousands of children undergo treatment for cancer, heart problems, and severe injuries, in broad daylight. Parents holding babies walked in the street outside the hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack. “
To be fair – the ABC also covered the Gaza atrocity, but in a less emotional way.
Over the past few years, the contrast in media coverage has been remarkable. This could be in Gaza, because the Western media are getting their information from Israeli sources, and not from Gaza. While for Ukraine, well the news is exclusively from Ukraine, and not at all from Russia.
Even the language of reporting has often shown the difference. For Ukraine, it has been reporting like ” Putin’s Russian mercenary soldiers have killed hundreds civilians ” For Gaza – “According to Hamas, hundreds of civilians died”. The inference is that in the case of Ukraine, the Putin’s brutal soldiers massacre civilians. But in Gaza, well the news from Hamas is not to be trusted anyway, and the civilian deaths were unfortunate collateral damage in the hunt for Hamas terrorists.
Again, to be fair, I think that media coverage of Gaza is improving. It would need to, as firsthand reports from Gaza cannot be ignored.
But finally – there’s a very clear dilemma for the West, in reporting the events in both countries, and the significance of these events.
Israel is designated as a major non-NATO ally . So is it OK by NATO and USA, for USA to keep supplying weapons for Israel’s attack on Gaza?
NATO is very upset about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so much so, that the top priority of the current NATO summit in Washington. Apparently the Israeli genocide in Gaza is not an issue.
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