Saturday, August 23, 2014

The Genocide That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Consider the following data:

(a) "Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group via (a) Killing of members of the group..."

(b) "Israel has killed 1 in every thousand Gazans. That's the equivalent of 300,000 Americans." (Saree Makdisi tweet, 19/8/14)

(c) "Murad, the head of Gaza's bomb squad, estimated that Israel had dropped between 18-22 thousand tons of explosives on Gaza since 7 July... If Murad's estimate is right, then the explosive power Israel has fired on Gaza by land, sea and air so far is roughly equivalent to one of the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in August 1945." (How many bombs has Israel dropped on Gaza? Ali Abunimah, electronicintifada.net, 19/8/14)

Given the astonishing scale of death (now over 2000) and devastation wrought by the Israeli military on the population of the Gaza Strip, you'd think the 'G' word would at least occasionally crop up in msm reporting on the subject, right?

I haven't seen it used even once.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Waleed Aly, however, had no trouble yesterday calling a genocide a genocide when talking about ISIL's rampant violence in northern Iraq, referring to its "campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide" against the Yazidis. (The oldest terrorist tactic: provoke an overreaction, 22/8/14)

I note that he made no use of the 'G' word in an earlier column on Gaza, MH17, Gaza & the value of human life (25/7/14).

Interesting, eh?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Waleed Ali does not dare to use the word 'genocide' as it relates to the Bandit State in the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald [motto:Independent. Always.] Although by sheer numbers alone and by a consistent pattern 'genocide' is obvious.

The treatment of Mike Carlton has ensured a compliant and servile editorial policy.

There are hundreds of mainstream 'journalists' in Australia keen to promote and excuse the Bandit State but now there is not one prepared to openly support the Palestinians, despite what some say in private conversations. This is self censorship.

This leads to boring and predictable news coverage. No wonder the newspapers are loosing money. Not only will the public not buy their spin, the public won't buy their newspapers.

Grappler said...

I wonder if the "Independent. Always." SMH or the Age or the ABC will publish this from Richard Silverstein, after they have rushed blamed Hamas for the failure of the latest ceasefire, including in the case of the ABC a statement by the odious Mark Regev.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/