{"id":1270,"date":"2024-10-08T11:33:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T08:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2025-07-21T15:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T12:03:06","slug":"western-media-neither-neutral-nor-responsible-player-in-gaza-war-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/?p=1270","title":{"rendered":"Western media neither neutral nor responsible player in Gaza war: Author"},"content":{"rendered":"

Muslimpress: A <\/span>British author Dr. Matthew Alford <\/span>\u00a0argues that the Western mainstream <\/span>media is <\/span>neither<\/span> a neutral <\/span>nor responsible player when it comes to their coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza, citing <\/span>quantitative<\/span> studies that expose <\/span>the media\u2019s<\/span> pro-Israel bias.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen organizations like FAIR, Media Lens, and the Glasgow Media Group examine the media systematically using quantitative analysis, we see that the media is not a neutral or responsible player,\u201d\u00a0said Matthew Alford, in an interview with <\/span>MUSLIMPRESS<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

He pointed <\/span>to<\/span> a recent<\/span> study <\/span>which <\/span>found that major American <\/span>news networks aired<\/span>\u00a0105 segments on Gaza but only included the word \u201cceasefire\u201d or \u201cde-escalate\u201d<\/span>, with <\/span>Fox News<\/span> mentioning <\/span>\u201cceasefire\u201d twice as often <\/span>\u201c<\/span>but only to ridicule people calling for one.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>There have also been <\/span>stark<\/span><\/a>\u00a0illustrations of <\/span>bias<\/span><\/a>. For instance, news anchors regularly insist at the start of interviews that Palestinians condemn Hamas, in at least one case just hours after Israel had wiped out the interviewee\u2019s whole family<\/span>,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel waged a brutal war on Gaza on October 7, after Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out \u201cOperation Al-Aqsa Flood\u201d against the occupying regime in retaliation for <\/span>its<\/span> atrocities against Palestinians. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Israeli war on Gaza has left tens of thousands of casualties, mostly children and women, in the besieged territory. <\/span>Over half of Gaza\u2019s residential units have <\/span>also <\/span>been destroyed or damaged<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a<\/span>bout 1,200<\/span> Israeli settlers were also killed on October 7, with the latest reports suggesting that the Israeli military itself caused many of those casualties.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe <\/span>independent news site called The Grayzone compiled a detailed report suggesting that Israel\u2019s high-tech military response on October 7th itself caused <\/span>numerous casualties, including many Israelis, under the so-called <\/span>\u2018<\/span>Hannibal Directive<\/span>\u2019<\/span> (i<\/span>.<\/span>e. don\u2019t allow the enemy to capture hostages). The severity of this retaliation has no<\/span>t yet been properly established,\u201d <\/span>the British author<\/span> explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alford, a <\/span>co-producer of \u201cTheaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA Took Hollywood\u201d<\/span>, also noted that <\/span>Hollywood has mythologized for Israel since the 1960 historical epic Exodus starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint.<\/span><\/p>\n

He added that a<\/span>n independent movie starring Helen Mirren, Golda (2023), currently at cinemas, continues the trend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>In our book \u2018National Security Cinema\u2019, Tom Secker and I examine blockbuster movies, such as Steven Spielberg\u2019s Munich\u00a0(2005) and Adam Sandler\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>You Don\u2019t Mess with the Zohan\u00a0(2007), which sneer<\/span>ed at the Palestinian struggle,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tellingly, he went on, <\/span>celebrities like the comedian Amy Schumer defend Israel\u2019s invasion of Gaza, while Susan Sarandon has been dropped by her agency for expressing support for Palestine<\/span>, <\/span>a<\/span> pattern<\/span> which he said <\/span>has persisted for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alford <\/span>also highlighted the importance of street protests led by Palestinians worldwide, especially in Western countries, yet maintained that w<\/span>hether the millions out on the streets will be enough to compel a constructive outcome <\/span>is much harder to anticipate.<\/span><\/p>\n

He <\/span>warned<\/span> that there is <\/span>some <\/span>\u201c<\/span>extremely disturbin<\/span>g rhetoric<\/span>\u201d<\/span> coming out of Israel.<\/span>\u201c<\/span>I even saw an Israeli children\u2019s choir the other day singing sweetly <\/span>\u2018<\/span>We will annihilate everyone in Gaza<\/span>\u2019<\/span>. But that\u2019s not quite policy. If it were, we\u2019d see a regional war.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked to comment on Western <\/span>countries\u2019 claim to advocate human rights <\/span>throughout the world while throwing their weight behind the Israeli regime\u2019s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, the British author said <\/span>k<\/span>ey players in London and Washington are the biggest <\/span>\u201cvirtue signal<\/span>ers\u201d in the world<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are<\/span> always prepared to abandon the fad when popular <\/span>or political support evaporates,<\/span> just as w<\/span>ith Afghanistan the year before, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Western states fostered a mass outpouring of support for Ukraine in February 2022, explicitly rejecting realistic peace opportunities, causing a million casualties, and all the while with zero prospect of improving outcomes for the region.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Muslimpress: A British author Dr. Matthew Alford \u00a0argues that the Western mainstream media is neither a neutral nor responsible player when it comes to their coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza, citing quantitative studies that expose the media\u2019s pro-Israel bias. \u201cWhen organizations like FAIR, Media Lens, and the Glasgow Media Group examine the media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0},"categories":[373],"tags":[285,418,380,395],"video-categories":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"video-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/muslimpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fvideo-categories&post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}