By Abdullah Alkabir, Libyan political writer and commentator
Fall of masks of falsification and deception
Major Western newspapers and media channels wrote off all the past decades of conflict, between the Zionist military occupation force and the Palestinian popular resistance seeking to get rid of the occupier and regain their freedom. Indeed, western media is ignoring all the occupier’s violations, crimes, and violations of international law. There is no mention of killing civilians, arresting them, demolishing their homes, destroying their agricultural crops, or confiscating their lands, and the desecration of their mosques.
In the narrative of this media, the history of the conflict began on the day the Palestinian resistance carried out its attack on October 7th and Hamas is the aggressor. With all impudence, the Western media jumped directly to a natural conclusion and a legitimate reaction in all laws, customs, and laws to all the violations committed by the occupation gangs on a daily basis against the Palestinian people, as if the resistance movements were motivated by criminal tendencies, with no goal other than killing and intimidation, and justified the occupation gangs for all their crimes and violations.
This media, despite its different platforms and orientations, all adopted the narratives of the occupation entity, including false and fabricated stories, and its newscasters began interviewing their guests with a specific and repeated question, as if one party had formulated it, and ordered all broadcasters, on all major channels, to launch their interviews with it, especially if it was known that the guest has inclinations and sympathy with the cause of the Palestinian people. Do you condemn the attack carried out by Hamas on the morning of Saturday, October 7? While describing the attack as terroristic, brutal, bloody, etc.
If the guest tries to place the event in question in its historical context, and concludes that it is an inevitable result of the occupation’s practices over 75 years, his/her interlocutor will immediately interrupt him. Leave history now and stay with the brutal attack. Do you condemn it or not?
The strict and biased guidance through all major Western media platforms, and through their most famous symbols and programs, against a people defending themselves, their land, and their sanctities, in favour of the occupying entity, did not succeed in concealing the truth, as it failed to cover up the horrific crimes and massacres carried out by the occupying fighter jet and its missiles in Gaza. Indeed, such media was forced to return to relative moderation in order to salvage some of its credibility, which is at stake after such bias and falsification of facts were exposed, by promoting the narrative of the occupying entity, without scrutiny and verification from independent sources in adherence to professionalism, and without considering the opposing party’s narrative too, as objectivity requires.
There may be more than one reason for this failure, as opinion polls have shown that young age groups rely on obtaining information from social media, follow activist blogs and channels on various websites, and have little interest in newspapers and satellite channels.
This means that traditional media are no longer monopolizes the media space, which pushed it, against its will, to correct itself and return, even if only slightly, to the professional path, with the increasing power and influence of immigrants and progressive movements in Western societies, which are aware of the reality and nature of this conflict, and it has become certain that the traditional media has lost much of its credibility, and then, from its impact, and from the results of this round of conflict, it will raise controversy in all circles of public opinion, about the nature of the conflict and its consequences, and the just cause of the Palestinian people will win many supporters, and this will force all media outlets to adopt a more just, moderate, and balanced discourse. The masks of falsity and deception have fallen, and the ugly face of bias has appeared blatantly this time, after it was able in the past decades to direct public opinion towards the narrative presented by the occupying entity and the forces supporting it in all political and media circles.
Despite its tremendous technological progress, and despite its almost absolute dominance over the industry and formulation of media discourse, the Western media lacked the wisdom that would have guided it, during its coverage of the 2022 World Cup, to realize the transformations taking place due to the spread of alternative media through social media. The narrative that it presented sought to promote that Qatar had no right to host the World Cup, doubting its capabilities, and its expectations of an unsuccessful tournament, which were refuted by activists and fans from different countries, who transmitted in audio and video all the beautiful events, the wonderful festive atmosphere in the stadiums and outside them, and Qatar's preparations to provide all amenities to the World Cup guests.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Libya Observer
