22 Months of Complicity: Why The Media Suddenly Changed Its Mind On Gaza

By Robert Inlakesh

After 22 months of complicity and silence, major Western news outlets appear to have had an epiphany about the Gaza genocide. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

The mask has fallen off Western leadership and their corporate media machinery. They aren’t allowed to suddenly pretend as if they weren’t complicit in the Gaza genocide.

After 22 months of complicity and silence, major Western news outlets appear to have had an epiphany about the live-streamed genocide in the Gaza Strip. Yet, given that this change has coincided with a similar rhetoric shift from Western leaderships, it has not been received the way they had hoped and shouldn’t be.

You may have noticed a near 180-degree pivot in the way that Western media outlets have been reporting on Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. Just months ago, the BBC, Sky News, CNN, the AP, and even popular commentators like Piers Morgan were all framing the genocide as Israel’s defensive war against Hamas.

Now, that same media machine is challenging Israeli officials, standing up to Zionist propaganda and, in many cases, calling out Tel Aviv’s policies for what they are, in line with what human rights groups and the UN reports.

On Thursday, the BBC, AP, AFP, and Reuters even released a joint statement expressing their concern for their journalist colleagues in the Gaza Strip, stating that “they (Gazan journalists) are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”

While some have heaped praise upon these media outlets and personalities for suddenly standing up, many have seen through it. So in light of this, it is important to explain why this is, in fact, all performative, and frankly, downright insulting.

To begin with, the sudden shift appears to be justified across the Western mainstream media spectrum on the basis of Israel’s 3-month-long total blockade of Gaza and recent statements of senior officials, particularly Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

In order to assess whether this acted as the straw that broke the camel’s back and suddenly caused an awakening, we have to look at how true it is that the situation on the ground in Gaza changed so dramatically.

On the point about the statements coming from prominent members of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, it is blatantly false that there has been any kind of major rhetoric shift in recent months. In fact, one only needs to go back to South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in late December of 2023, to get a full list of genocidal statements.

When the ICJ genocide case hearings took place in January, 2024, one of the most convincing arguments presented by South Africa’s legal team was the fact that everyone from the Israeli Prime Minister, President and Defense Minister, to media personalities, had made genocidal remarks, which were then interpreted by soldiers on the ground as orders to commit a genocide.

On October 9, 2023, then Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asserted that his military was fighting “human animals” and that “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”

This leads us to the next major reason cited for the alleged collective epiphany across the corporate media spectrum, which is the Israeli policy of starvation. Yes, Israel did impose a complete siege on Gaza for over 80 days, yet during that period, which came after Israel decided to arbitrarily scrap its ceasefire agreement, the media shift did not yet occur.

The number of people starving to death in the Gaza Strip has undoubtedly reached levels not seen before. Although it should be noted that this is not actually the period in time when the largest number of overall daily deaths have occurred.

Nor is it true that the starvation policy is something new. Now, to counter this, some may push back by claiming that this time it is clearly as a result of a much more deliberate approach.

Yet this would ignore the fact that in April of 2024, Israel’s top rights group B’Tselem released a report entitled “Manufacturing Famine” in which they accuse Israel of deliberately implementing policies aimed at inflicting famine; which did actually begin to unfold before the Israelis were ultimately forced to allow some aid to enter Gaza.

So then we come to these statements appealing to Israel to allow aid into Gaza and expressions of concern for journalists.

Let’s address the statements of concern, such as the BBC, AP, AFP, and Reuters statements. Again, let’s reflect on the idea that Gaza’s journalists are “now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”

This would have been true had it been published 22 months ago. Only “now” are they suffering the circumstances of those they cover? No. They have been suffering exactly as the rest of the population has since the beginning of the genocide.

These journalists do not need statements of concern; they deserve an apology from the BBC, Reuters, AP, and AFP for the atrocious reports they have all put out throughout the genocide that have worked in many cases to whitewash and justify Israel’s actions.

At least 217 Palestinian journalists have been murdered by Israel since October 7, 2023, making this war in Gaza the deadliest for journalists in human history. That is more journalists who have been killed covering the genocide than died in WW2 and the Vietnam War combined.

If we pair the shift in coverage from these media outlets with the change in rhetoric from their respective governments, or at least major political parties they align with, it begins to make sense what is truly happening here.

Hilary Clinton was one of the proponents of the “Systematic Hamas mass rape campaign” hoax, which worked to justify the continued slaughter of civilians in the name of going after Hamas, despite there being no evidence to support this claim. Now she calls for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer also delivered remarks calling for an end to the suffering in Gaza and urging Israel to allow the free flow of aid into the besieged coastal territory. At the same time, however, he continues to sell weapons components to the Israeli military and punishes activists domestically for standing in the way of the weapons industry’s role in the genocide.

It suffices to say that this is not authentic; it’s all performative. Why? It comes down to a few different reasons. The first is that the scale of the starvation inflicted in Gaza was becoming a bad look for Israel’s allies. Unlike the case with bombing, there is literally no excuse that works to justify stopping food from reaching a civilian population.

Then there is the aspect of this that the Western governments and media are putting on a show, as they sense that the genocide is in its final stages. The governments make empty statements, without real action to follow it up, while the Western media gets to try and salvage their tarnished image.

The whole world has watched every outlet, once held up as the gold standard of journalism, lie so blatantly and work as stenographers for the Israeli foreign ministry. So, now, in order to enter relevancy on the topic, they have to put up a front that they are holding the Israelis to account.

This also opens the door for them to begin shaping the confines of what the acceptable discourse on the issue should be, after it has clearly gotten out of their control. From Right to Left, to the politically non-affiliated, all major social media influencers and independent reporters are now comparing Israel to the Nazis and they call what is happening in Gaza a genocide.

These comparisons, just a year ago, were viewed as socially unacceptable; now it is normal for people to liken Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

The mask has fallen off Western leadership and their corporate media machinery. They aren’t allowed to suddenly pretend as if they weren’t complicit in the Gaza genocide.

At the very least, they need to all apologise, not to their own public that they have failed and lied to, but to the Palestinians who have so far managed to survive this holocaust.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.