Committing genocide isn’t just about killing. It’s about ensuring you can get away with as much of it as possible before anyone does something to stop it. And that’s where the British mainstream media has played a key role in facilitating Israel and its mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza.
The latest example of the media’s participation in Israel’s genocide comes in the form of its coverage of Israel cutting power to Gaza.
Human rights groups say Israel cutting electricity to Gaza is a WAR CRIME, but MSM doesn’t seem to think that’s newsworthy
Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights group Gisha, and British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians have clearly stated that Israel’s decision starve occupied Gaza of electricity is a war crime. Amnesty International, meanwhile, has said it “is further evidence of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians”.
However, you wouldn’t know Israel was committing a war crime if you relied on the mainstream media. Because if you search for the words “war crime”, Gaza, and electricity together on a search engine, it’s slim pickings. And that’s despite even prime minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson timidly admitting Israel’s action “risks breaching Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law”.
That’s a careful, diplomatic way to say that Israel is committing the war crime of collective punishment. Starmer has denied the genocide in Gaza, and he provoked a backlash previously by suggesting Israel had the right to collectively punish Palestinians – all of which makes his spokesperson’s comment even more surprising.
Towards the end of a BBC article, it says “Israel has faced criticism over cutting off supplies to Gaza”, adding a UN quote saying it “may amount to collective punishment”. But as the BBC well knows, few readers will get that far. It is, after all, a master at hiding key information from the public when it comes to Israel’s crimes in occupied Palestine.
The propaganda machine censors, sidelines, and ridicules the voices of reason, but we can fight back
Noam Chomsky and Edward S Herman’s Manufacturing Consent outlines how five key filters shape the stories that mainstream media outlets deliver to the public. One of the filters is the ‘flack‘ you get if you “stray away from the consensus”. Chomsky has also highlighted the way powerful elites seek to “strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum”.
So first, mainstream media outlets actually limit what gets out there. Then, if someone does manage to get through the system with the truth, they face ‘flack’ – ridicule, attacks, and so on. And that’s what happened to Briahna Joy Gray when she braved a hostile environment on Piers Morgan’s show this week to say:
Israel has repeatedly bombed the power infrastructure long before October 7th, over the last decades, to prevent Gaza from being able to be independent in its power, exactly so it can use collective punishment, which isn’t just immoral as you put it Piers, but is in fact a war crime.
Big up, @briebriejoy. She was spitting facts. pic.twitter.com/Qvr8RBKvBy
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) March 10, 2025
Gray’s privileged white opponents on the show ganged up on her, and the show selectively edited her participations in the intro while taking her out of the thumbnail. But importantly, she got the point above across (among others).
That’s an important lesson. Because while it’s a tough, uphill struggle to get the truth out, it can happen. But we all need to work hard to make it happen.
Featured image via the Canary
