Daily Times

Israel is at it again. The nation that likes to call itself the Middle East’s only democracy has bombed another media outlet in the Gaza Strip. This time, it was the turn of the Nama Online Women Media Network, a women’s rights news website. No advance warning was given.

Over the last week, Tel Aviv has acted with impunity against journalists in the area. Not content with effectively locking foreign correspondents out of Gaza, Israel flexed its armed and loaded muscles in the very worst way. And, as if by magic, multiple media outlets were reduced to rubble. Bricks and mortar destroyed and along with them important media archives and equipment. All to the better to prevent on-the-ground truths being served up for mass consumption. Global media watchdog RSF was right to call these deliberate attacks on the media: war crimes. Nevertheless, it remains unfortunate that reports of the more than 20 Palestinian demolished news outlets were largely relegated to footnotes on the fate of Al Jazeera and Associated Press offices.

It didn’t need to be like this. After all, the US and other champions of selective human rights have long demonstrated that Palestinian lives don’t matter. Not to them. This is why much of the western mainstream chooses to de-humanise the Palestinians by exclusively framing them as a threat to Israeli security. This point was expertly made by PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) Ambassador to the UK Husam Zolmot. During a BBC interview, he slammed the national broadcaster’s biased coverage that perpetually paints Palestinians as aggressors and instigators of violence.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is hoping to change all that. The man of the moment has been working hard to secure international consensus on Israel’s brutal use of force. He has successfully mobilised urban populations here at home to come out in support of the Palestinians while rejecting the West’s willful myopia. All of which threatens to steal the low rumbling thunder from the PDM as it prepares to take to the streets at the end of the month to agitate against the PTI government. Though the biggest win may well be dimming the spotlight on the rumours of a Jahangir Tareen-led forward bloc.

We, here at Daily Times, back the PM’s efforts on Palestine and hope this will continue. Although we sincerely hope that the Pakistani delegation currently in New York for an emergency UN General Assembly session on the Israel-Palestine conflict will raise the issue of media attacks. For Pakistan needs to start talking to the West in its own language. And that means offering helpful reminders of how no democracy can flourish while the media remains shackled and under fire. This message also needs to be brought home. *