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Tomgram: Nan Levinson, Peace When? [1]
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Date: 2023-12-12
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Might we find ourselves thinking somewhat differently about our planet? Who knows? But in the meantime, let TomDispatch regular Nan Levinson make some sense of this particular journalistic Gaza moment of ours. Tom
In these weeks, I’ve wondered what our world would be like if, for the next two months or more, the news led off with a daunting story on climate change each night as humanity continues to pour ever more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the major global gathering to deal with this crisis is being led by the ruler of a petro-state who recently claimed that “there is no science indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C.” Just imagine eight weeks of raging nightly headlines like this one I recently noticed at the Guardian: “Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn.”
And yes, the situation in Gaza is indeed a nightmare and a half — and could still grow far worse, not only there but in the Middle East more generally. (Just wait until the first American soldier dies from a drone attack by forces allied with — or at least imagined to be allied with — Iran!) Still, right now, on this woebegone planet of ours, you could almost imagine that there simply was no other news that mattered. The war in Ukraine has, of course, disappeared down the proverbial newshole in a big way.
It’s now more than two months since Hamas savagely assaulted Israeli border settlements and this round of the war in Gaza began. As a matter of habit, I watch NBC Nightly News and the PBS NewsHour and, in those eight weeks, I don’t think there was a single night when both of those broadcasts didn’t start with the latest news from Israel and Gaza. Other than in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, I doubt there’s been a media coverage moment like this one since World War II ended.
Nan Levinson By
What a world! For eight weeks now, events in Israel and Gaza have been the story of the hour, day, week. And what exactly are we to make of that?
Let’s start with the obvious: American media coverage of the horrors there has been nonstop since the Hamas slaughter of October 7th. In fact, it’s knocked Russia’s war in Ukraine, the one we were told was so essential to the future of democracy, off front pages (and their media equivalents) everywhere. And the coverage of recent protests has strikingly outpaced those of any other antiwar protests in this century. What the American news media do is, of course, only part of any story, but their recent protest focus contrasts vividly with how they’ve typically covered antiwar and peace actions and so reveals something about how we Americans are thinking about war and peace right now.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, American journalists did report on the outrage over that country’s actions and the outpouring of support for Ukraine, but in the endless months of conflict since then, they’ve paid almost no attention to actions calling for a negotiated settlement there, even as that war goes bloodily on and on. Neither was there much coverage of antiwar protests against Washington’s endless conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan after February 15, 2003, when (depending on whom you read) six to 15 million people took to the streets of 600 to 800 cities around the world in the largest one-day antiwar protest in history. There, too, even though antiwar veterans and peace groups continued to stage actions, the interest of American news outlets soon evaporated.
Admittedly, Camp Casey, a sprawling encampment of relatives and supporters of soldiers and veterans who wanted to stop the war in Iraq, which sprang up near a vacationing President George W. Bush in August 2005, temporarily caught the attention of a bored press corps idling in the heat. By spring 2008, however, when I was trying to drum up interest in Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, a sizeable gathering of Americans who had fought in those two wars and were publicly testifying about their misguided actions there, I was dismissively told by a New York Times reporter, “If you read the New York Times, you would know that it doesn’t cover rallies.”
A couple of summers ago, the Boston Globe and other local news outlets showed no interest in talking to anyone boarding buses in that city for the Poor People’s Campaign’s Moral March on Washington, which included antimilitarism in its platform. In contrast, when about 100 locals boarded buses for a pro-Israel rally in Washington this November, the Globe devoted 24 paragraphs to the story. (Granted, the pro-Israel-march buses loaded at Gillette Stadium, home to the Patriots football team, which is always news in these parts.) It’s common to gripe about insufficient reporting on a cause you care about, but for me — and I’ve covered antiwar actions since 2001 — it’s striking that the media, in their gatekeeper and agenda-setting roles, have been so eager to cover protests about Israel’s war in Gaza in ways they seldom did when it came to U.S. antiwar actions earlier in the century.
Does it matter if you throw a protest march and reporters don’t come? Yes, because the very point is to be noticed. The news media are a sphere where competing ideologies and aims play out in the open. So, the way marches and other actions are or aren’t covered helps shape public opinion, affirms or challenges received wisdom, creates a historical record, and — fingers crossed — helps define future political practices.
In this case, with the United States in a powerful position to influence the course of the war on Gaza, continued reporting on antiwar protests could help pressure President Biden to stop embracing (could there have been a worse optic?) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demand a permanent ceasefire instead.
Why This Story Now?
Amid competing narratives, unverifiable information, intense emotions, and everything we still don’t know, it’s important to keep all the often-contradictory realities we do know in mind — and be suitably alarmed.
We know that the United States lavishes at least $3.8 billion yearly in military aid to Israel, along with Get Out of Jail Free cards when it comes to human-rights abuses. Josh Paul, a State Department official who resigned in protest over the way our weaponry was killing Gazans, reminded us of just that recently. (The U.S. has also given money to the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, but vastly less of it.)
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