{"id":356321,"date":"2018-04-12T00:09:58","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T23:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/medias-linguistic-gymnastics-mislead-on-gaza-protests\/"},"modified":"2018-04-12T00:09:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T23:09:58","slug":"medias-linguistic-gymnastics-mislead-on-gaza-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/medias-linguistic-gymnastics-mislead-on-gaza-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Media\u2019s Linguistic Gymnastics Mislead on Gaza Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AP:<\/p>\n

AP<\/strong> headline on WashingtonPost.com<\/strong> (4\/6\/18<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As Adam Johnson (FAIR.org<\/b>, 4\/9\/18<\/a>) writes, media have engaged in extraordinary mental gymnastics to describe the Israeli military\u2019s deliberate killing of Palestinian protesters in the Great Return March, framing long-distance sniper shootings as \u201cclashes\u201d in order to misleadingly \u201cgive the reader the impression of two equal warring sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Equally torturous are the linguistic contortions news outlets have performed to avoid stating the simple fact that Israel is shooting hundreds of demonstrators with live ammunition (Electronic Intifada<\/b>, 4\/6\/18<\/a>), killing 30 (Reuters<\/strong>, 4\/9\/18<\/a>) and injuring close to 2,000<\/a>. An Associated Press<\/b> headline (4\/6\/18<\/a>) said, \u201cPalestinian Protesters Burn Tires, Sending Smoke Billowing at Gaza\/Israel Border; Israeli Troops Fire Back Sporadically.\u201d That\u2019s a logical impossibility: Israeli forces cannot \u201cfire back\u201d at people who aren\u2019t firing at them. The sentence rests on the absurd assumption that burning tires is the same as shooting people.<\/p>\n

\"AP:<\/p>\n

AP<\/strong> headline on FoxNews.com<\/strong> (4\/7\/18<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Another AP<\/b> headline (4\/7\/18<\/a>) said, \u201cGaza Buries Journalist Who Died After Covering Mass Protests,\u201d a reference to Palestinian journalist Yasser Murtaja, whom Israel shot while he filmed Friday\u2019s march in Gaza. Readers could conclude from the headline that Murtaja covered the protests and then went home and died of natural causes. In reality, he died because an Israeli sniper shot him. Obfuscating that absolves Israel.<\/p>\n

There was also this cryptic news brief from the New York Times<\/b> (4\/6\/18<\/a>): \u00a0\u201cSporadic rifle fire from the Israeli side of the Gaza border made clear that the Palestinian protests could elicit the sort of response that killed 20 people a week ago.\u201d The paper uses 30 words and still fails to convey the critical information that can be communicated in seven words: Israel kills nine Palestinian protesters in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Not only does the headline seriously muddy what happened, it also primes readers to blame Palestinians for being massacred, by saying their protests \u201celicited\u201d the massacre. Likewise, describing Israel\u2019s massacre as a \u201cresponse\u201d is a way of justifying it.<\/p>\n

\n

Sporadic rifle fire from the Israeli side of the Gaza border made clear that the Palestinian protests could elicit the sort of response that killed 20 people a week ago https:\/\/t.co\/ajma6qnRDV<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 New York Times World (@nytimesworld) April 6, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js<\/a><\/p>\n

The references in these headlines to the Gaza\/Israel \u201cborder,\u201d ubiquitous in the coverage of the Great Return March, are erroneous. There is no border between Gaza and Israel; there is an armistice line. Israel built a fence along that line and uses lethal violence against Palestinians who approach the structure. Calling this barrier a \u201cborder\u201d wrongly implies that the question of Palestine has been resolved, which the marches themselves belie.<\/p>\n

These headlines, as Johnson says of the term \u201cclashes,\u201d \u201cobscure…power dynamics and the nature of the conflict itself,\u201d occluding the colonial character of the Israeli project and the Palestinians\u2019 right to struggle for liberation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nThis piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AP headline on WashingtonPost.com (4\/6\/18) As Adam Johnson (FAIR.org, 4\/9\/18) writes, media have engaged in extraordinary mental gymnastics to describe the Israeli military\u2019s deliberate killing of Palestinian protesters in the Great Return March, framing long-distance sniper shootings as \u201cclashes\u201d in order to misleadingly \u201cgive the reader the impression of two equal warring sides.\u201d Equally torturous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-356321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}