First published on Ynet - 10.26.23
On 7.10.2023, 'Palestine' was 'Free'. At least for a dozen hours or so.
13 days later, you were invited along with your colleagues, journalists and reporters from around the world to watch and experience what happened the day ‘Palestine’ finally achieved their ‘Freedom’.
You were invited to screen a film documenting of what victory looks like in the eyes and GoPros of the people whose cause you have championed for so long.
When the credits finally rolled, it was not the happy ending to the movie you had been fantasizing about. There was no walking off into the sunset basked in peace and prosperity. There were no iconic closing lines, and it was anything but “the beginning of a beautiful friendship’.
You left the event understandably shaken and distraught at the HD video testimony. You saw HD quality witness of the bloodthirsty delight taken by terrorists butchering our women and children in ways not even conceived possible for the nature of mankind. At least for the generations already ignorant to the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Outside the hall, you labelled Hamas as “ISIS X10 on steroids”. Some of you had already shed tears or broken down during live reports with witness recalling their experience in the Kibbutzim and at scene of the Supernova party massacre.
This letter is for you.
It is not addressed to your producers, nor the studio journalists and executives. I am writing only to you.
You, who are here with us right now in our country, sharing this short moment in time. You, who are witnessing our destiny play out, the latest chapter in our 3000+ year connection to this land.
I have seen it in your eyes, you know our truth.
It is true that Israelis have long given up our naive expectations for a fair media trial. But seeing your unfiltered live reactions to our pain and suffering, has pushed me to appeal to you, for one final time, because now I know that you finally understand. You have given us a glimmer of hope.
Hope that maybe you are beginning to understand the role you have played in demonizing Israel for decades.
Hope that you will need come to terms with the 'Hall pass' you have given Palestinians and their leaders for so long.
Hope that you finally understand the irrevocable damage you have caused to Jews worldwide by essentially supporting their dehumanization. Portraying us as evil participants in, or supporters of, a colonial, globalist oppressive regime (and other liberal buzzwords).
I understand that it must be hard to understand how or why your integrity has suddenly been called into question, just because the dead children you reported on are Israeli and Jewish.
It must be frustrating to have your coverage of the genocidal massacre of our people in the evilest ways known to mankind, dismissed outright as Israeli propaganda and lies.
I am sure it’s equally infuriating to be called upon to act as forensic experts and provide endless evidence to support your reporting, only to have the authenticity of that also questioned and doubted, now a staple requirement for any reporter wishing tell stories of violence towards Israelis. Without this, you are not considered a reliable source, credentials you were sure you had earned a long time ago.
You may be asking yourself, how has it gotten to this? You are a professional and experienced Middle-East reporter for heaven’s sake!
Well, for most of us Jews in Israel and abroad, it really comes as no surprise to learn of your new ‘Israeli mouthpiece’ status. A slanderous label cynically and cruelly stamped on you by an audience who only just two weeks ago respected your work.
Perhaps I might be able to shed some light by inviting you to deconstruct the failed principles of international Middle East reporting and try instead to view through our eyes the consequences they have had.
It goes something like this; Supporters of the Palestinian cause are split into two primary groups.
There are those who don't believe your reporting of the 07.10.2023 pogroms because they simply can’t. It doesn’t make sense to them. It doesn’t add up. They are finding it impossible to have their entire belief system, curated from decades of carefully orchestrated misreporting, suddenly shattered.
For them, a report which contradicts the narrative so strongly, simply cannot be. It’s easier for them to do a quick switch and cancel the very same people who have reported to them live from the ME on Palestinians deaths for years. Lives regrettably lost while used as human shields by their terrorist leaders (although that part is always conveniently left out). You have seen evidence of that too at the screening. Videos of families beaten back into their building block while underground Hamas fires rockets.
This category of Palestinian supporter seems an impossible task to uproot their selective bias. Its why we haven’t even attempted to for a such long time. How can we combat the mighty forces which continually expose them to reporting such as the now infamous Gaza hospital explosion? I know you would rather blot that whole episode out, but the reporting pattern was all too familiar. It’s not a new phenomenon. To quickly recap, you immediately and without any evidence, reported it as an Israeli attack which killed close to 500 innocents. The story was lapped up eagerly and thankfully. The old narrative was resorted to the public, albeit only temporarily. Only a couple of hours passed before overwhelming evidence unequivocally proved that it was actually the leaders of romanticized ‘resistance’ who bore the responsibility for killing their own citizens courtesy of a misfired rocket which landed not on a hospital, but in the carpark.
And as fast as the original libelous claim was made, as slow it was to be rectified. Too late. Damage done. The public have been successfully entrenched even deeper into the Israeli aggressor narrative. The hatred sky-rockets and any public opinion defence we attempt to mount is a lost cause.
So naturally, when you now report on the ISIS-playbook, brutal murder and rape of innocent Israelis, Palestinian supporters in the West simply don’t believe you. They have been long conditioned to believe the mainstream media’s ‘oppressed Palestine’ indoctrination.
But you did try. And just like that, you became fake news.
Oops!
I suppose this is what happens when leaders of an internationally designated terrorist organization, holding 200+ hostages including women and children, are invited to your studios to interview on a level par with democratically elected Israeli politicians.
In one such early interview on Sky news, a Hamas spokesperson outright denied that they are holding any hostages and flatly refused to admit that they had killed even a SINGLE Israeli. Yesterday again, Himmler’s reincarnate, Khaled Marshal himself was invited back to interview in the same studio to talk about Hamas’s terms for releasing hostages. It is an unfathomable absurdity.
It’s also what happens when you play simplistic comparison games, tallying up casualties on both sides to provide ‘context’. It seems no terrorists have ever been killed in the history of the conflict, only “innocent civilians”.
This is the predicable product of what happens then you continue to parrot meaningless terms such as “proportionate” & “balanced response” while continuing to source your facts and figures from baby killing, internationally designated terrorist groups before reporting them to the world as gospel.
“Just count the deaths and you will see who the bad guys are”.
This is the monster you have created. This is the result of your progressive work to supposedly champion the oppressed.
The second group of Palestinian supporters are very different.
They absolutely do believe your reporting on the atrocities committed against us. They believe it without question. They are not confused in the slightest. And they rejoice as the reports are read out on TV. If you had any doubt about it, watch how they continue to celebrate the attacks and hail their victory in the name of Palestine while BBC, SKY News and CNN plays in the background.
Oh yes, they do believe you. But I wouldn’t look for validation from them if I were you.
Nor would I make any mistake about the role you play on behalf of these stains on humanity. Your studios are their handy weapon utilized so effectively to dilute negative public opinion and backlash. It is you who they turn to with arbitrary numbers of civilian deaths on “both sides” confident that they will be relayed and amplified without question.
Your very own reporting is endlessly quoted to justify terrorism on social media and in street riots. As it is used to remind us that the Palestinian population deserves its celebrations as the news pours in of our dead, and of hostages kidnapped.
This latter group are our enemies. They are the enemies of all humanity. Their fate has already been sealed in the history books and will be remembered in the same way as those who supported the Nazis throughout Europe.
Although for the former group of Palestinian flag bearers, denial always comes first, there is maybe still some hope. Some of them, may change their minds and rebuild their thinking around the conflict. Most probably will not.
So, this is my plea to you, dear Journalist of the world.
You and your colleagues have just watched us being savagely murdered. I know that it is also your own belief systems which has taken a sledgehammering. The emotions you are feeling right now are real and raw. The glass of your moral compass has finally been wiped clean with the sponges of our Zaka volunteers.
You stand before a fork in the road and in your conscience. Do you choose more of the same, knowing where it has led and will inevitably continue to lead again?
Or will you engage your moral and professional obligation to right as much of the wrong you have caused to the Israeli people and Jewish people for decades of libel prior to that fateful day on the 7th of October, when we should have been celebrating our holy Simchat Torah holiday?
It is now on you to recalibrate the media narrative to align with what you understand is true right now, in this short fleeting moment in time.
It should not be just on us Jews to justify our right to survive and exist anymore.
We are passing on the baton to where it should always have been. It is your job.
Cautiously yours,
A British-Israeli Citizen.
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