Last week, we saw how media bias in the Israel–Hamas conflict can give a distorted picture of what’s going on. Hamas broadcast the lie that an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza had killed 500 people, and the lie was uncritically repeated by outlets including the New York Times, the Associated Press, and the BBC.
Regrettably, this media credulousness was not an isolated incident. ITV News, a prominent British broadcaster, gave airtime to Latifa Abouchakra, “a British Palestinian woman living in London,” who feels she is subject to Islamophobia. “I’ve been called a terrorist. I’ve been asked to go back home. I’ve had people in their cars making threatening gestures,” she said,
It makes me feel as a Muslim woman in this country, that no matter how hard I work, no matter how good I can be, it will never be enough because apparently Muslims and Palestinians are inherently terrorists according to the system here, according to the narrative of the media here.
But it turns out that the British media narrative has been much too generous to Abouchakra, who is, in fact, a reporter for Palestine Declassified, a show produced by the Iranian regime’s state-controlled channel, Press TV.
Latifa Abouchakra was invited to @itvnews to talk about life as a Muslim in the UK.
She complained amongst other things about being “called a terrorist”.
Just a week later, she was the face of antisemitic show “Palestine Declassified”.
pic.twitter.com/yVGfckN16G— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 23, 2023
In response to the October 7 atrocities, Abouchakra said: “As fragile as a spider’s web, the Zionist entity is shaking with fear. In an early morning shock, Palestinian resistance factions from Gaza launched an unprecedented three-pronged attack on the entity.” Describing the Hamas paragliders as “armed fighters,” she said that “what ensued was the homecoming of at least 1,000 Palestinians from the resistance factions into the fragile Zionist entity.” She described the kidnapped Israeli men, women, and children in the following terms: “Over 100 settlers have been taken as prisoners of war by the resistance — the vast majority are members of the Occupation Forces.”
Incredible.
In other news, I recommend watching the following BBC interview with Natasha Hausdorff, an international lawyer who exposes the moral equivalence baked into her interviewer’s questions with great aplomb.
You’ll be hard pressed to find more knowledgeable experts on international law and how it effects Israel in its response to the Hamas massacre, than barrister Natasha Hausdorff! Brilliant explanation here on BBC. pic.twitter.com/q2qMzeF7UH
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 21, 2023