The Western media’s Israel-Palestine double standard

America and Israel’s manipulation of the violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, exaggerating crimes against Israelis or Jews and ignoring those that target Palestinians and Muslims, should anger the entire world, especially the people of the Middle East. Unfortunately, this disparity does not get much attention in either the US or Israel. But the gap between how the two are reported is immorally immense.

Last Thursday, explosions destroyed three empty civilian buses in separate car parks in Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv. Israeli police immediately called it a terrorist attack. Even though no one was hurt, the nonlethal attacks dominated media reports in America and Israel.

Meanwhile, barely reported by any American mainstream media is the daily carnage in Gaza. Israel’s violence in the Strip takes place 24 hours a day, every day, meaning it does not fit the journalistic definition of “news” — that of being “new.”

Under that cloud is another wave of ongoing violence being carried out by the Israeli security services and armed Jewish settlers against West Bank Palestinians.

Little is being reported. It is almost like nothing is taking place. But it is happening. Daily.

The day before the attacks on the three empty buses, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces had killed at least three Palestinians in an attack on a house in the Far’a refugee camp. The mainstream American media ignored this. Had the victims been Israeli, the reporting would likely have been hysterical.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights watchdog staffed by Jews and Arabs, continues to persevere despite an ongoing campaign of harassment, beatings and bullying by Israeli security forces. It reports on violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel itself, but its findings are often ignored.

This month, for example, B’Tselem published a report into the events of Dec. 19, 2024. At about 10 a.m. that day, two vehicles with Palestinian license plates drove into the market street, a central thoroughfare in Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus. Local security signaled for the unknown buses to stop and that is when Israeli soldiers emerged from the vehicles and began firing indiscriminately, wounding six people and killing two.

B’Tselem continues to persevere despite an ongoing campaign of harassment, beatings and bullying by Israeli security forces

Ray Hanania

Halimah Abu Leil, 80, who was shopping for vegetables in the market, was shot and killed. The Israeli attack lasted more than two hours. Soldiers blocked all attempts to take the injured Palestinians to hospital for treatment.

The Israelis entered a nearby home, expelled the family that lived there and used it as a command center. They used one of the family’s daughters, Lara Sawalmeh, as a human shield, stationing her at the front door as they shot at residents from the home’s windows. A neighbor, Qusai Al-Saruji, peeked out of the door of his balcony to check if the raid was over so that he could go to work. He was shot dead, the B’Tselem investigators reported.

Even with all that detail confirmed by a highly respected agency, nothing was reported by the Western news reporters who work out of Jerusalem under Israeli government supervision.

In another incident last year, Israeli forces went on a campaign of destruction in Tulkarem refugee camp. B’Tselem reported that special forces personnel arrived at the camp at about 12.30 p.m. on Sept. 10 in civilian vehicles with Palestinian license plates. They were later joined by additional military, border police and Shin Bet forces, who brought bulldozers. The purpose? To dig up the streets, smash Palestinian-owned cars parked on the side of the road and block the entrances to homes. The destruction was so widespread it turned much of the area into rubble.

As residents returned to their homes on hearing about the raid, the Israeli forces shot at them. Two young Palestinians were killed. They were Ahmad Majdubah, 25, who was trying to close the gate of his family’s car wash to go home, and Hibat Allah ‘Obeid, 21, who stepped out of her house with her mother to see what was happening.

Also, in the summer of 2024, Israeli forces repeatedly entered Hebron and injured dozens of Palestinians. B’Tselem volunteers took testimony from 25 of the victims who were abused by Israeli soldiers between May and August last year. They describe acts of violence, humiliation and abuse by Israeli soldiers against men, women, teenagers and children. The victims gave harrowing accounts of physical and psychological abuse, including beatings, whippings, cigarettes being put out on their bodies, blows to their genitals, injections of an unidentified substance, prolonged binding and blindfolding, threats, insults and more.

Even with all that detail confirmed by a highly respected agency, nothing was reported by the Western news reporters

Ray Hanania

Soldiers appeared to select the victims arbitrarily as they went about their daily lives. In most cases, they were taken away to military facilities, where the worst of the abuse occurred. None of the victims were suspected of or prosecuted for any offense. They were mostly released immediately after being assaulted, with many requiring medical treatment. Only two victims were arrested and both were released without charge within days.

Nearly every Palestinian city is being targeted by Israeli forces and Palestinians are being killed every week. But where are the media reports?

These incidents are ignored. Why? Because terrorism against Palestinians is not considered news by the mainstream Western news media and many Western reporters are forced to work under the confines of Israeli government censorship. They lack the courage to speak out against the inhumanity occurring right before their eyes.

- Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. He can be reached on his personal website at www.Hanania.com. X: @RayHanania