{"id":1253739,"date":"2023-10-08T08:51:01","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T08:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=94252"},"modified":"2023-10-08T08:51:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-08T08:51:01","slug":"john-minto-systemic-nz-misreporting-on-israeli-occupation-of-palestine-and-palestinian-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/08\/john-minto-systemic-nz-misreporting-on-israeli-occupation-of-palestine-and-palestinian-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"John Minto: Systemic NZ misreporting on Israeli occupation of Palestine and Palestinian resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>COMMENTARY:<\/strong> <em>By John Minto<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Hamas attack on Israel yesterday has brought the usual round of systemic misreporting by New Zealand news outlets as they repost stories from the BBC, AP and Reuters which bend the truth in favour of Israeli narratives of \u201cterrorism\u201d and \u201cvictimhood\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/04\/08\/al-aqsa-raid-how-bbc-coverage-is-enabling-israeli-violence\/\">worst comes from the BBC<\/a> which is dutifully reposted by Radio New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>As we said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/04\/12\/john-minto-israeli-attacks-on-al-aqsa-mosque-and-the-failings-of-media\/\">commentary earlier this year<\/a> the systemic anti-Palestinian in reporting from the Middle East includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/04\/12\/john-minto-israeli-attacks-on-al-aqsa-mosque-and-the-failings-of-media\/\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> John Minto: Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa mosque \u2013 and the failings of media<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/04\/08\/al-aqsa-raid-how-bbc-coverage-is-enabling-israeli-violence\/\">Al-Aqsa raid: How BBC coverage is enabling Israeli violence<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/election-2023\/499705\/new-zealand-politicians-speak-out-over-israel-hamas-violence\">New Zealand politicians speak out over Israel-Hamas violence<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/liveblog\/2023\/10\/8\/israel-palestine-escalation-live-israeli-forces-bombard-gaza\">Al Jazeera coverage of the crisis<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?s=Palestine\">Other Palestine reports<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_94260\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-94260\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"wp-image-94260\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/John-Minto-TVNZ-APR-680wide-300x219.jpg\" alt=\"Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa John Minto\" width=\"400\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/John-Minto-TVNZ-APR-680wide-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/John-Minto-TVNZ-APR-680wide-576x420.jpg 576w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/John-Minto-TVNZ-APR-680wide.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-94260\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa John Minto . . . &#8220;&#8216;Occupied&#8217; is the status these Palestinian territories have under international law, United Nations resolutions and NZ government policy, and should be consistently reported as such.&#8221; TVNZ screenshot\/APR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The BBC, AP and Reuters typically talk about the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem when they should be reported as the <em>occupied<\/em> West Bank, <em>occupied<\/em> Gaza and <em>occupied<\/em> East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/liveblog\/2023\/10\/8\/israel-palestine-escalation-live-israeli-forces-bombard-gaza\">\u201cOccupied\u201d is the status these territories have under international law<\/a>, United Nations resolutions and NZ government policy and should be consistently reported as such.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC, AP and Reuters typically refer to Palestinians resisting Israel\u2019s military occupation Palestinian \u201cmilitants\u201d or \u201cterrorists\u201d or similar derogatory and dismissive descriptions.<\/p>\n<p>We would not call Ukrainians attacking Russian occupation forces as \u201cmilitants\u201d so why do our media think it\u2019s OK to use this term to describe Palestinians attacking Israeli occupation forces?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Palestinian right to resist<\/strong><br \/>\nUnder international law, Palestinians have the right to resist Israel\u2019s military occupation, including armed resistance and should not be abused for doing so by our media.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinian resistance groups should be described as \u201cresistance fighters\u201d or \u201carmed resistance organisations\u201d while Israeli soldiers should be described as \u201cIsraeli occupation soldiers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC, AP and Reuters typically give sympathetic coverage to Israelis killed by Palestinians but do not give similar sympathetic coverage to Palestinians killed, on a near daily basis, by the Israeli occupation (more than 240 killed so far this year, including dozens of children.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_94262\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-94262\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-94262\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Chris-Hipkins-TVNZ-APR-680wide-300x175.jpg\" alt=\"Labour leader and NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins\" width=\"400\" height=\"233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Chris-Hipkins-TVNZ-APR-680wide-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Chris-Hipkins-TVNZ-APR-680wide.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-94262\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Labour leader and NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins . . . New Zealand &#8220;condemns unequivocally the Hamas attacks on Israel.&#8221; Image: TVNZ screenshot\/APR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The vast majority of these killings are simply ignored.<\/p>\n<p>Palestinians are the victims of Israeli apartheid policies, ethnic cleansing, land theft, house demolitions, military occupation and unbridled brutality and yet our media ends up giving the impression it\u2019s the other way round.<\/p>\n<p>Wide coverage is given to Israeli spokespeople in most stories with rudimentary reporting, if any, from Palestinian viewpoints.<\/p>\n<p>For example, so far Radio New Zealand has reported on the views of New Zealand Jewish Council spokesperson Juliet Moses but has yet to interview any Palestinian New Zealanders who suffer great anxiety every time Palestinians are killed by Israel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Support for self-determination<\/strong><br \/>\nNew Zealanders overwhelmingly support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination. They rightly reject Israel\u2019s racist narratives and its apartheid policies towards Palestinians.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Yara Eid, a journalist from Gaza, expresses her reaction to the news that her friend and fellow journalist 21-year-old Ibrahim Lafi was murdered by Israeli missiles in Gaza. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4LqutaOgmP\">pic.twitter.com\/4LqutaOgmP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PALESTINE ONLINE <img src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/72x72\/1f1f5-1f1f8.png\" alt=\"\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/> (@OnlinePalEng) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OnlinePalEng\/status\/1710869711569780898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Our government policy needs to change.<\/p>\n<p>We should not be calling for negotiations between the parties because Palestinians face both Israel and US at the negotiating table and this will never bring justice for Palestinians and will therefore never bring peace.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_94268\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-94268\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-94268 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Killings-of-Palestinians-Al-Jazeera.jpg\" alt=\"Killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict\" width=\"680\" height=\"559\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Killings-of-Palestinians-Al-Jazeera.jpg 680w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Killings-of-Palestinians-Al-Jazeera-300x247.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Killings-of-Palestinians-Al-Jazeera-511x420.jpg 511w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-94268\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . a graph showing the devastating loss of life for Palestinians compared with Israelis in the past 15 years. Source: Al Jazeera (cc)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Instead, we need a timeline for Israel to abide by international law and United Nations resolutions. This would mean:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ending the Israeli military occupation of Palestine;<\/li>\n<li>Ending Israel\u2019s apartheid policies against Palestinians, and Allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land in Palestine<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Contact with the journalist Nidal Al-Wahidi was lost yesterday during his coverage of events at the Beit Hanoun checkpoint, and there is no confirmed information about his death. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2U9wAkrwaw\">https:\/\/t.co\/2U9wAkrwaw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 PALESTINE ONLINE <img src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/72x72\/1f1f5-1f1f8.png\" alt=\"\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em; max-height: 1em;\" \/> (@OnlinePalEng) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OnlinePalEng\/status\/1710888969347494202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2023\/10\/08\/john-minto-systemic-nz-misreporting-on-israeli-occupation-of-palestine-and-palestinian-resistance\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COMMENTARY: By John Minto The Hamas attack on Israel yesterday has brought the usual round of systemic misreporting by New Zealand news outlets as they repost stories from the BBC, AP and Reuters which bend the truth in favour of Israeli narratives of \u201cterrorism\u201d and \u201cvictimhood\u201d. The worst comes from the BBC which is dutifully<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[789,433,5,365,69704,69705,6,23581,6487,7226,29468,118,289,492,652,24328,255,9270,33,358,12,473,23584,14,69706,417,22010,1743,537],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1253739"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1342558,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253739\/revisions\/1342558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1253739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1253739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1253739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}