u Art: Khalil Bendib / otherwords.org
such pain and suffering on the civilian population and society at large as to deter anyone from resisting against Israel’s occupation. This can be prosecuted as a war crime”.
I
t also serves as a useful definition of terrorism. Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said via Twitter: “What the Israeli army asserts, namely that the alleged presence of Hamas in the buildings would make them legitimate military objectives is absolutely false from a legal point of view, since they also house civilians, such as the media”. He added: “Even assuming that the Israeli fire was necessary (which
is absolutely not proven), the total destruction of the buildings demonstrates that the principles of distinction and proportionality have been flagrantly violated”. Indeed, RSF sent a letter to Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, urging an investigation of Israel’s targeting of the offices of 23 media organisations in Gaza during Israel’s bombardment. Gregory Shupak wrote in a piece for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, the US-based media watchdog, that corporate media coverage presented a “false equivalence between occupier and occupied”. He continued: “The fatal flaw in the “both sides” narrative is that only the Israeli side has ethnically
cleansed and turned millions on the Palestinians” side into refugees by preventing them from exercising their right to return to their homes. Israel is the only side subjecting anyone to apartheid and military occupation. It is only the Palestinian side – including those living inside of what is presently called Israel – that has been made to live as second-class citizens in their own land. That’s to say nothing of the lopsided scale of the death, injury and damage to infrastructure that Palestinians have experienced as compared to Israelis, both during the present offensive and in the longer term”. When the truce “between Israel and Hamas” was imminent, Jeremy Bowen told BBC viewers: “Now, the essentials of that conflict are not goColdType | June 2021 | www.coldtype.net
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