Liberal mainstream media outlets are increasingly calling for Europe to take action to hold Israel to account for its genocide in Gaza. But that’s not because it’s a genocide – a word they still refuse to use. Instead, it seems to be because they fear Europe will lose international legitimacy over its clear hypocrisy on Israel.
Failure to act could over Israel see Europe “slide into irrelevance”
After 20 months of genocide, complicity, and repression of dissent, Western Liberal politicians have finally started to change their tone a bit (in consultation with Israel). Ostensibly, it was the settler-colonial state starving thousands of babies to death in Gaza that shifted the dial. The killing of at least one Palestinian child every hour there since October 2023, on the other hand, was apparently not enough.
The more likely reason for the current handwringing is to buy Israel more time, while trying to fool citizens into thinking they’re acting.
Media outlets like the Guardian and the Financial Times (FT), meanwhile, have other reasons to push for action.
A piece in the Guardian, for example, argued that – after 20 months of death and destruction – “Israel’s actions finally became too severe to ignore, deny or justify”. As a result, Europe “faces a moment of truth”, and should “follow through on trade sanctions on Israel – or slide into irrelevance”. Explaining that “a human rights review of EU-Israel ties is under way”, it insisted that “the results will be significant for both the war and Europe’s reputation”.
While its call for “a real economic and political cost on Israel” is welcome, the absence of the words ‘genocide’ and ‘war crime’ looms large. Because what’s happening in Gaza is not a ‘war’. It’s a barrage of settler-colonial war crimes, as the UN, the International Criminal Court (ICC), numerous countries, and human rights organisations have been saying for months. And countless legal, academic, and human rights experts have described the brutal assault as a genocide.
If Europe had anyone’s respect in the world before October 2023, that has suffered irreparable damage through these many months of woefully inadequate action.
“Hypocrisy is part of it”
The FT, in all fairness, correctly noted the role hypocrisy has played in Europe’s uselessness since 2023. It called for sanctions on Israel, if only to “make threats of sanctions more credible” by finally being consistent. The inconsistency, of course, could hardly be clearer if we compare Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And the FT admitted:
No doubt the west has treated Russia and Israel differently, and hypocrisy is part of it.
It even said:
the UN has found overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and in connection with the increasingly brutal occupation of the West Bank.
But in its call for consistency in Europe’s dealings with Israel, it still omitted the word genocide and sought to ‘both sides’ the settler-colonial slaughter, which it chose to call:
Benjamin Netanyahu’s war in Gaza
And it added:
It is possible — indeed sensible — to think Israel is entitled to wage war against Hamas in Gaza
This is not about Netanyahu, though. It’s about Israel as a decades-old occupying power which Western governments arm to the teeth with a side serving of near-total impunity. And no, Israel doesn’t have an ‘entitlement’ to destroy Gaza. As Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein has insisted:
Israelis have only one right, to pack up their bags and leave the State of Palestine.
UN expert Francesca Albanese has added to this by asserting that, legally, “Israel didn’t have the right to wage a war against the Palestinians in Gaza”, clarifying that:
It cannot claim the right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies
Mainstream media still not doing their job
Papers like the Guardian and FT aren’t ignorant. They know the context, but consciously choose to omit key words or information from their coverage. In doing so, they cover for Israel by helping to conceal its genocidal behaviour. So just as establishment politicians in Europe lose international legitimacy over their inaction in the face of genocide, so too should their mainstream media counterparts.
Featured image via the Canary
