In April 2015, Ahmed Tibi, a member of Israel’s parliament from the Arab Joint List, issued a strong statement denouncing Islamic State’s (ISIS) war crimes against Syria’s Palestinian population. “What’s happening in the Yarmouk camp is a crime against humanity,” he said, referring to the terror group’s violent takeover of the refugee camp located near Damascus only days earlier.
“Over a thousand Palestinians were killed,” Tibi asserted.
Strikingly, his statement was ignored by virtually all media outlets outside of Israel, with the Washington Examiner being the only major news website to mention Tibi’s comments. The fact that the comments went unreported was especially remarkable when keeping in mind that media have often and extensively covered his allegations about purported crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians (see, for example, here, here and here).
Apparently, supposed crimes committed against Palestinians by Israel are more deserving of media attention than actual atrocities perpetrated by any other actors.
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Before the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, Yarmouk was home to some 160,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants, making it the largest such community in the country. The camp was initially established in 1957 with the goal of housing Arab refugees from Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, in which five Arab armies attacked the young Jewish state.
The Syrian civil war completely destroyed Yarmouk. By January 2019, only a “few dozen families” were left in the camp, with just bombed-out buildings and rubble remaining.
After clashes between pro- and anti-Bashar al-Assad forces, the Syrian government imposed a siege on the area. Between July 2013 and February 2014, Amnesty International recorded 194 deaths in Yarmouk, including 12 babies, six children and 41 elderly people. Two-thirds died of starvation; others died because of a lack of medical care. In the years that followed, intensifying clashes, airstrikes and shelling brought more devastation, pushing the Palestinian death toll in Yarmouk up to an estimated 1,458.
“[Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad has killed more of us today than Israel did in its latest war on Gaza,” a Palestinian refugee told The New York Times on December 16, 2012.
However, a big data analysis by HonestReporting reveals that most prominent media outlets largely overlooked these Palestinian deaths. For example, when the Syrian regime killed 20 civilians during a week-long aerial bombardment campaign on Yarmouk, only five articles mentioned the killed Palestinian civilians.
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Then, amidst the government assault on Yarmouk, Islamic State terrorists in April 2015 briefly seized control of the camp. According to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s envoy to Syria, Anwar Abed al-Hadi, ISIS “executed, beheaded and raped” Palestinian residents. These claims were corroborated by Palestinian sources on the ground, but nevertheless got little to no attention from mainstream media.
ISIS’ crimes against Palestinians were not limited to the assault on Yarmouk. According to UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, between January and June 2016, Islamic State bombings in the vicinity of Qabr Essit — another refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus — killed at least 36 Palestinians.
An analysis by HonestReporting found that these Palestinian victims of ISIS atrocities were not mentioned once by major media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, the BBC and others.
Turning a Blind Eye to Hamas Crimes Against Palestinians
Similarly, many media outlets seem to give a free pass to crimes committed against Palestinians by Hamas, the terror organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip for over a decade. On July 24, 2021, Palestinians in the coastal enclave called on Hamas and other armed groups to stop storing weapons in residential areas. The rare outcry followed a large explosion in Gaza City’s Al-Zawiya market that killed one person and injured 14 others.
Although several media were quick to report on the blast (see here, here and here), they subsequently opted to ignore the news of the likely involvement of Palestinian terror groups.
More footage from the scene of the explosion. pic.twitter.com/j0kU1r5Sej
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) July 22, 2021
Indeed, an investigation into journalistic coverage of the Gaza Strip reveals a pattern of selective reporting when it comes to Palestinian suffering. For instance, when a Gazan teenager was killed last year after the explosive device he was working on detonated, media made no mention of the incident, which exposed how Gaza-based terror groups recruit minors into their ranks — an act that constitutes a war crime.
And in the context of the May 2021 Gaza conflict, outlets like The New York Times went a step further, actively downplaying Hamas’ crimes against their own population (see here and here).
Related Reading: NYT Hatchet Job: ‘Investigation’ Into Israeli Wartime Strikes Leads to Vicious Insinuations… But Zero Conclusions
The Syrian regime and terror groups like ISIS and Hamas are known for their genocidal tactics and human rights violations. Yet, major news outlets are seemingly blind to the plight of ordinary Palestinians who get caught in their crosshairs.
However, media apathy also extends to Western-supported governments. For example, Palestinians are not much better off living under the authoritarian rule of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. But while the death of Nizar Banat, a Palestinian human rights activist who died in PA custody, received a considerable amount of coverage earlier this month (see here, here and here), the attention given to the PA’s human rights violations was fleeting.
Where were these outlets when the US accused Ramallah of targeting — and in some cases torturing — participants of the 2019 “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop in Bahrain, a bombshell charge that only made headlines in Israel?
When Israel is not involved, silence seems to be the rule of thumb rather than the exception. It almost seems like some Palestinian lives count more than others.
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Featured image: UNRWA
