The contrast in courage is astonishing
The bravery of the remaining few
A staggering number of journalists in Gaza have been killed by Israel. Many of them purposefully assassinated then slandered as "terrorists" in death. 160 and counting in fact. It's an ignominious record. More than the number of journalists killed in World War II, the Vietnam War, and in Ukraine combined.
The bravery of the remaining few still there doing their jobs every day among the rubble and bone is stunning to me. So many of our major journalists here won't even acknowledge this pattern of targeting them for what it is: blatant and obvious war crimes.
A lot of them still insist in fact every day that they have it coming.
I'm sure some small percent of mainstream U.S. journalists do have sympathy and respect for their colleagues in Gaza in private or in their heart of hearts or whatever – but who fucking cares. They don't report on it enough or talk about it out loud with the anger and solidarity it deserves because it is simply too dangerous for them! They might have to find a less prestigious job if they start explaining the world as it actually is. Can you imagine how difficult that would be?
The contrast in courage is astonishing.
I'm reminded of when Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh was brazenly assassinated by Israel in May 2022 and almost no major media in the U.S. gave a single fuck. They beat her pallbearers at her funeral too. This isn't just post-October 7 shit.
I wrote at the time:
The Al-Jazeera reporter was shot to death earlier this week by Israeli snipers according to her own outlet and first hand accounts from other journalists on the scene despite the fact that she was wearing a helmet and vest that clearly marked her as press. One might speculate that those identifiers made her a more attractive target. A journalist's life is no more valuable than that of any other average person but the killing of one by the state can often represent a very different type of thing considering the awareness of the increased coverage it will always get.
Look at what we can do. Even this. And what will be done about it?
I may not have been cynical enough with that "awareness of the increased coverage it will always get" line. I'm sorry about that.
All of which is to say that in solidarity with the journalists of Palestine I am proud to have signed this letter along with 100+ other journalists calling on the United States to immediately stop sending weapons to Israel. We sent it to Secretary of State Antony Blinken late last week.
Read more about it and see all the signatories here at Defending Rights & Dissent or read an editorial about the effort here at The Nation.
August 15, 2024
Dear Secretary Blinken,
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 160 Palestinian journalists. This is the largest recorded number of journalists killed in any war. While Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of the densely populated Gaza means no civilians are safe, Israel has also been repeatedly documented deliberately targeting journalists.
Israel’s military actions are not possible without U.S. weapons, U.S. military aid, and U.S. diplomatic support. By providing the weapons being used to deliberately kill journalists, you are complicit in one of the gravest affronts to press freedom today.
On World Press Freedom Day this year, you called on “every nation to do more to protect journalists,” and reiterated your “unwavering support for free and independent media around the world.”
As journalists, publications and press freedom groups in solidarity with the courageous Palestinian journalists of Gaza, we call on you to do more to protect journalists and show unwavering support for free and independent media by supporting an arms embargo against Israel.
Israel has gone to great lengths to suppress media coverage of its war in Gaza, imposing military censorship on both its own journalists and international reporters operating in the country; and, with Egypt’s help, blocking all foreign journalists from Gaza. Israel shut down Al Jazeera, raided its office, seized its equipment, and blocked its broadcasts and website within Israel. The world relies only on the Palestinian journalists in Gaza to report the truth about the war and Israel’s widespread violations of international law. 1
Israel’s deliberate targeting of these journalists seems intended to impose a near blackout on coverage of its assault on Gaza. Investigations by United Nations bodies, NGOs, and media organizations, have all found instances of deliberate targeting of journalists.2
In a joint statement, five UN special rapporteurs declared:
“We have received disturbing reports that, despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked “press” or traveling in well-marked press vehicles, journalists have come under attack, which would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting.”3
Israel has also killed journalists during the war outside of Gaza, such as on October 13, 2023 when an Israeli tank fired across the Lebanese border at clearly identified press, killing a Reuters reporter and injuring six other journalists. 4
Under international law, the intentional targeting of journalists is a war crime. 5 While all governments are bound by international law protecting reporters, U.S. domestic law also prohibits the State Department from providing assistance to units of foreign security forces credibly accused of gross violations of human rights.6 Israel’s well-documented pattern of extrajudicial executions of journalists is a gross violation of human rights.
Additionally, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the American people’s right to receive information and ideas. Israel’s deliberate targeting of journalists follows a longstanding pattern by the Israeli government to suppress truthful reporting on its treatment of Palestinians and its war in Gaza. By providing Israel with the weapons used to kill journalists, the State Department is abetting Israel’s violent suppression of journalism.
The US is providing the weapons Israel continually uses to target Palestinian journalists in Gaza. This is a violation of International law and U.S. domestic law. We urge you to immediately cease the transfer of all weapons to Israel.
Signed,
113 journalists 20 news outlets 7 press freedom organizations
Oh wait hold on it looks like they do care about journalism after all! Here's what the State Department posted the same day we sent the letter.
Did you read this one from the other day?
The two main stories in brief:
"Cars driving around in circles filled with nothing and honking at no one. You couldn't write a more heavy handed satire of empty tech ghoulishness if you tried. Well you could but you'd have to try a little hard."
"Dozens of armed agents of the state (getting overtime no doubt) working at the behest of a corporate landlord supervising slaves to ensure that nothing can be had that isn't paid for. Except for the labor of inmates in Georgia where the minimum wage is $0."
I was reminded afterwards of this searing passage by Steinbeck:
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate—died of malnutrition—because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
Very little since then has changed.
Pretty cool video. Not cool if you owned the house I imagine but still.
Of course I have a story about this very thing in A Creature Wanting Form.
Ok it's time for another edition of the thing I don't have a good name for still. Sentences of Note? Something like that. Plus a bunch more of The Shitty News below.
You'll need to be a paid subscriber to keep reading the rest of today's newsletter. Thanks as always for your support.
For the rest of you here's something I found very funny for the road.
You can also always go and read this one for free if you never did.
