The Damaging and Unfounded Rhetoric Against Palestine and the Influence it Holds
The rhetoric circling Israel and Palestine has been striking, specifically the numerous false allegations centered on weaponization and sexual violence against women and attacks on children have been used to paint Israel in a better light. In Western media, there is a strong sense of victimization of Israeli women, but notably less coverage of Palestinian women who have been attacked, with Western media weighing in favor of Israel and portraying a one-sided coverage.
Almost a week since the militant group Hamas launched its retaliation attack against Israel killing 1,200 people and wounding more than 2,700. Israel then declared war launching airstrikes on Gaza that have wounded over 5,000 at the time of writing, killing 1,055 people. Hamas launched its attack on Israel after suffering for over 76 years under the illegal occupation of the Israeli state.
Since the internet has been flooded with stories some of them based on facts while others spread like wildfire mainly through social media without any supporting evidence. Stories such as Hamas beheading children and committing mass rape of Israeli women and girls have been disproven with no official reports of such events occuring.
Using women’s bodies and feminism is an instrumentalized way of pushing a narrative, yet in this case, the false claims are in fact riddled with double standards as Palestinian women and girls have been abused for decades but did not receive the same indignation.
After overwhelming amounts of fake news surfaced the White House confirmed to news outlets that President Biden never saw images of these events. The statement was published to quash the US President’s earlier comments on October 10, based on “the alleged atrocities on the claims from Netanyahu’s spokesman and media reports from Israel,” the White House stated.
Hamas has also openly rejected the claims of assaulting women and decapitating children calling them “lies,” Al Jazeera quoted.
The EU addressed Elon Musk to remove content depicting misinformation on his platform X, formerly Twitter. However, Musk has been unforthcoming and demanded that the EU provide evidence of the alleged false information.
Another damaging rhetoric is tinting the lens through which the world sees these events unfold. Many Western media outlets including the BBC are guilty of using an imbalanced word choice, using heavily negatively connotated words like “killed” to describe the murdered Israeli civilians.
Meanwhile, biased media used more neutral terms with a passive tone when discussing Gaza, the BBC wrote about the death toll saying people have “died” in Gaza. An injustice and unfair coverage depicts the layered bias that some countries have, particularly those that feel the need to maintain their bilateral relations with Israel.
At Politics4Her we strongly condemn the narrative that is being pushed that Hamas is representative of Palestinian civilians, we equally reject suggestions that the Israeli occupation forces are representative of the people of Israel.
Furthermore, through the coverage of these attacks, there have been numerous remarks suggesting this is a war between Arabs and Jews, which is another underlying message that provokes hate. We denounce the media’s decision to introduce negative religious rhetoric that only serves to fuel hate towards the respective religions. As a consequence, there have been particularly strong Islamophobic comments surfacing, with people wrongly generalizing Hamas’ actions to all Muslims.
In addition, we reject unfounded claims being published on media sites and social networks without supporting evidence. We call for well-sourced information to be shared with thorough research as well as monitoring of fake news across platforms with a quick response towards content and that it is promptly removed and better prevented in the future.
References
Biden, P. (2023, October 10). Remarks by President Biden on the Terrorist Attacks in Israel. The White House. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/10/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-terrorist-attacks-in-israel-2/
Elon Musk's X rebuts EU allegations of 'illegal' content about the Israel-Hamas conflict. (2023, October 12). CNBC. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/12/elon-musks-x-responds-to-eu-over-illegal-israel-hamas-content.html
White House walks back Biden's claim he saw children beheaded by Hamas. (2023, October 12). Al Jazeera. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/white-house-walks-back-bidens-claim-he-saw-children-beheaded-by-hamas
