After a year of corporate media bias, now the Times has shown its true colours with a front page which amounted to nothing more than racism and spin for Israel over its assault on Lebanon.
The Times: spinning for Israel
The headline stated:
Eight Israeli soldiers die in battle with Hezbollah
This comes after Israeli strikes on Lebanon which have killed over 1,400 people and displaced 900,000. That is 20% of the population. Conveniently, the Times failed to mention that part:
Astonishing front page
8 Israeli soldiers’ deaths is a headline, whilst an Israeli strike on a school for orphans in Gaza City and Israel’s recent killing of 1400 in Lebanon are ignored
Some lives matter more for newspapers like The Timeshttps://t.co/WewHsbE1Ld pic.twitter.com/OBVFWyxeKG
— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) October 2, 2024
Source: 1400 ppl killed in recent strikes by Israel on Lebanon https://t.co/1BaokA0kWS pic.twitter.com/iwXzvntODT
— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) October 2, 2024
As the Canary previously reported, Israel’s colonial government has consistently rejected or undermined peace efforts (as it has historically). This has only escalated the conflict further afield. It has assassinated people in the Iranian consulate in Syria, in Iran, and in Lebanon.
Whitewashing crimes in Lebanon
Over the last year, the corporate media – including the Times – have whitewashed Israel’s crimes against humanity. Proving once again, that western corporate media outlets do not value Palestinian – and now Lebanese – lives. In other words, brown (as with Black) lives don’t matter to the rancidly racist establishment propagandists for the capitalist, colonial status quo:
The main character in @farah_nabulsi‘s new film ‘The Teacher’ says one Israeli life seems to be worth 1,000 Palestinian lives in the eyes of the western world and media.
How true that assertion seems each and every day now. #GazaGenocide #Palestine https://t.co/znkhWsApnG
— Ciaran Tierney (@ciarantierney) October 2, 2024
When we say Israel is a white supremacist project, this is what we mean. Their dead taking priority among a white middle class audience to be mourned https://t.co/8c1sP4pR6g
— Div (@askforcawmbyok) October 3, 2024
Complicity in Israel’s crimes
As the Canary has previously reported, western media outlets have continuously published coverage dripping in bias – and by extension, complicity in Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Palestine:
Simply astonishing. And people still have the temerity to say that the Western media are biased against Israel. https://t.co/KV57QFCZZM
— Gilad Halpern (@Gilad_Halpern) October 3, 2024
Back in March, the New Arab conducted an analysis on UK mainstream media coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In particular, it looked at articles by the Times, the Telegraph, the Sun, and the Daily Mail. Notably, it identified that:
in their headlines, all four sources exhibit bias against Palestinians in the following three ways: uniquely deploying a vast amount of emotive language when describing Israeli suffering, amplifying Israeli justifications for violence, and qualifying Palestinian deaths.\
Echoing these findings, researchers at the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain, produced a report on UK media coverage of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. This research looked more comprehensively at the UK press, assessing 28 outlets.
Again, it stated how:
One noticeable feature of this coverage has been the use of imagery which has shown Israeli aggression or Palestinian suffering and headlines which have favoured an Israeli position or narrative. The dehumanisation of Palestinians in this respect starts with the minimisation of their suffering, effectively rendering them invisible despite the huge numbers of those killed whilst focusing solely on the deaths of Israelis.
The Times is sitting comfortably among a Zionist propaganda ecosystem – and they are culpable for Israel’s war crimes:
There is no journalism anymore, just propaganda https://t.co/KLZGcvyRiJ
— Sam Missingham (@samatlounge) October 3, 2024
This is disgusting but exactly what I expect from a terrible rag like the @thetimes https://t.co/feDjQ7V7LZ
— René #FreePalestine 🟥🚩🇵🇸 (@rcmoya84) October 3, 2024
Blatant racism
When eight Israeli soldiers die whilst literally in the middle of committing an act of war – invading a sovereign country – they get a whole front page.
Where’s the front page for the over 1,400 people Israel has murdered in Lebanon, so far?
Or the 42,334 Palestinians Israel have ethnically cleansed?
Every single media article that ignores those numbers in favour of reporting on the deaths of murderers, is responsible for the genocide continuing as long as it has:
Arab and Muslims lives don’t matter to the institutionally racist Western press.https://t.co/20UUcW06TK https://t.co/w7pu6snPEs
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 3, 2024
Our media and political elites aren’t even pretending to hide their racism.
If they had to answer truthfully whether they regarded Arab and Israeli life as having equal worth, they would have to say no.
This isn’t subtle racism. It’s actually violent racism. https://t.co/3rthVdiF9C
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) October 2, 2024
In terms of grievability organised on entirely racist grounds this is a disgrace – an entirely predictable one, but still a disgrace. https://t.co/ZdRhY5sAbb
— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) October 3, 2024
One poster on X expressed how it clearly demonstrated the right-wing corporate media’s transparent hierarchy of human life in action:
Unsurprising.
Last November, this was a sentence in a Times article:
“Israelis marked a month since Hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240, starting a war in which 10,300 Palestinians are said to have died.”
Hierarchy of human life. https://t.co/a3zjPLFQPN
— Hamza Yusuf (@Hamza_a96) October 2, 2024
It’s like watching a reel of Reddit AITA rebranded, ‘Am I The Bad Guy’? If you’re ignoring an occupying state committing genocide and constant war crimes, then yes, you’re the ‘bad guy’:
When the media and politicians in your country are happy to accept a school of orphans as a legitimate military target but not soldiers invading another country, it’s hard to conclude anything but we are the evil empire. https://t.co/BDjajKQHjr
— HiCo, The Nun of the Above (@High_Command) October 3, 2024
It has been nearly a year of shitrags like the Times getting away with this unconscionably biased reporting on Israel’s beyond awful genocide. Yet, after it has murdered tens of thousands in plain sight – it continues to make itself out as the victim.
No matter how many times people point out its second-rate reporting, it’s never going to sink in for establishment mouthpieces like the Times. Because it has spent this time dehumanising Palestinians to such an extent, it’s genuinely believable that to them, Arab, brown, Muslim lives really don’t matter.
Unless of course, they’re rich dictators and ‘friends’ of the US, UK, and Western imperial project in the Middle East.
Feature image via the Canary