In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell invented “the memory hole.” Along the corridors in the Ministry of Truth were chutes leading down to enormous basement furnaces. You got rid of unpleasant documents and reports by dropping them in those chutes and promptly forgetting they ever existed.
The U.S. mainstream media is dumping news about the killing of the prominent Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh down the memory hole. Just 6 days ago, there were global headlines when Israeli police attacked mourners at her funeral after she was shot in the head while reporting in occupied Palestine. Since then, though, the New York Times has not said a word. Nor has the Washington Post. National Public Radio has not carried an on-air report since its original biased contribution (although its website did run an intriguing Associated Press story).
Nor have the mainstream media opinion sections spoken out — about what was, after all, the killing of one of their colleagues while she was doing her job. No editorials in the New York Times. No Op-Ed pieces. Similar total silence in the Washington Post.
(The Post‘s silence is a telling contrast with its vigorous reaction after the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed ordered the murder of its columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, back in October 2018.)
The mainstream blackout is not due to a lack of “news.” The Israeli daily Haaretz reported yesterday that the Israeli military will not investigate whether its soldiers shot Shireen Abu Akleh — even though eyewitnesses and human rights groups say they did. Amos Harel’s report was mildly disappointing and he slanted it pro-military, but he at least got to part of the truth by paragraph 6:
. . . one of the reasons [to not probe] was the belief that such an investigation. . . would provoke opposition within the [Israeli military] and in Israeli society in general.”
The Associated Press article (half-hidden on the NPR website) had another potential follow-up reporting angle. Bellingcat, the Dutch-based consortium of researchers, did an extensive probe that said “its initial findings lent support to Palestinian witnesses who said she [Abu Akleh] was killed by Israeli fire.” The sophisticated Bellingcat investigation makes fascinating reading; the AP report explained that “the material came from both Palestinian and Israeli military sources, and the analysis looked at such factors as time stamps, the location of the videos, shadows and a forensic audio analysis of gunshots.”
From the mainstream American media: crickets. The cement has already hardened around their first reports, which gave equal or more room to Israel’s contention that “Palestinian gunmen” had killed Abu Akleh.
Journalists are supposed to be like firefighters — if one of you is killed in action the rest of you show up in solidarity and you don’t shut up. Apparently, though, there’s an exception — when the Israeli army (almost certainly) kills your colleague.
The IDFs decision to not investigate her killing (let alone not allow an international independent investigation) is a de facto admission of guilt by Israel.
The White House and mainstream media’s coverup in not reporting on Israel’s decision, despite BOTH initially demanding an official investigation, is effectively tacit support and is a declaration of open season on all journalists reporting in Israel/Palestine and elsewhere.
In light of the horrible optics, multiple PR disasters, and inexcusable killing of a famous and much loved journalistic icon, you have to know that when Israel doesn’t pounce on the opportunity to prove that “evil savage Hamas militant terrorists” killed a journalist, especially an American, then you know with 100% certainty that they know that they themselves are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. They’ve chosen silence, obstruction, and obfuscation, and left the US government and mainstream media to, seemingly and all too willingly, clean up their crimes and dump the body in a lake on their behalf.
Israel will get away with this assassination, just like they have killed thousands of Palestinians, at checkpoints, with snipers by the fence as these poor people protested their suffering, and with precision bombs that wiped out entire families, and killed dozens of little children, including babies.
Did the US EVER condemn these massacres, or show outrage that Israel keeps violating international laws, by occupying stealing lands building illegal settlements, and kill with impunity.
Nah, in fact during one of their killing sprees, the US allowed them to take US ammunition from storage, and continue the killing. We are complicit in EVERY single killing, and war crimes by Israel,
and we should be ashamed of that;
I’m not holding my breath, but
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/16/israel-shireen-abu-akleh-fbi-investigation-congress/
A pair of congressional Democrats are circulating a letter demanding an FBI investigation into the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, according to three sources with knowledge of the letter and a draft copy of the letter obtained by The Intercept….Reps. André Carson, D-Ind., and Lou Correa, D-Calif., are in the process of gathering signatures to the letter, according to the three sources, who asked for anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the letter before it was complete. After publication of this story, Copeland Tucker, a Carson spokesperson, confirmed the letter and the Indiana Democrat’s involvement. A spokesperson for Correa did not immediately respond to a request for comment….Addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the draft letter requests both an FBI investigation as well as a determination by the State Department about whether the killing of the American journalist in Israeli-occupied territory violated any U.S. laws.
From Canada:
“Claims that Israel is imposing ‘apartheid’ on Palestinians put new pressure on Trudeau Liberals”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/israel-palestinian-apartheid-1.6436138
How such a ‘sensitive’ story is to be handled is not decided by journalists or even editors. There will have been an oral instruction from management.