Narratives - Lemmy.world

excerpts: WHEN A CEASEFIRE on Sunday night ended a three-day Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip, over 350 Palestinians were wounded and 46 were dead, including 16 children, according to Palestinian officials. Media coverage in the U.S. was mainly led by photographs of smoke-filled skies or Gazans walking amid piles of rubble. While the photos were accurate and recent, the safety of selecting these images, rather than graphic ones, effectively portrayed a reality for American audiences far removed from what had truly unfolded on the ground. … Mohammed Mhawesh, an independent Palestinian journalist and researcher based in Gaza, argued in an interview with The Intercept that coverage of the latest Gaza assault, which Israeli officials admitted was “pre-emptive,” focused almost exclusively on Israel’s ostensible justification for the attack rather than its impact. And even though the majority of victims were not engaged in acts of resistance, the portrayal of Palestinian resistance, he added, stands in stark contrast with that of the Ukrainian people. “For the past months, newspapers and websites and social media have been filled with stories of Ukrainian resistance and heroism, stories about soldiers blowing up bridges to delay the approach of Russian tanks and sacrificing themselves in the process. We have seen civilians attacking armed vehicles with whatever they have, and common people receiving weapons training and digging trenches,” Mhawesh said. “And yet, if any of these stories took place in Palestine rather than Ukraine, they would of course not be perceived as acts of heroism and resistance. They would only be classified and condemned as terror.”