It’s a common truism that ‘the first casualty of war is the truth’. Modern propaganda is increasingly surreal, however, as the availability of information means outlets can’t just lie to us straight, and instead they expect us to look at what’s happening and then lie to ourselves. An “astounding” example of this can be seen in Guardian coverage of recent Israeli airstrikes:
These are two astounding paragraphs from the Guardian. pic.twitter.com/ke0BNcQ2sI
— Hamza Yusuf (@Hamza_a96) March 15, 2025
The Guardian: triple speak
The paragraphs above come from a Guardian article published on Saturday 15 March which was titled:
Israeli airstrikes ‘kill nine’ as Hamas restates Gaza ceasefire demands
This is the tagline below it:
Militant group hardening its negotiating position in ceasefire talks amid new violence in territory
The ‘territory’ in question is Gaza; the ‘militant group’ in question is the governing party in Gaza, and the ‘new violence’ is being perpetrated by Israel. Some of this does become clearer in the piece, although it’s unclear why it has to be so much less clear at the top.
Let’s refresh our memory on the first offending paragraph
Currently, both sides have refrained from returning to war, though Israel has conducted an intensifying series of airstrikes in Gaza that have killed dozens of Palestinians.
In the West, we’ve become conditioned to the idea that airstrikes conducted by ourselves and our allies are not grave acts of war; they are instead positive attempts at peacekeeping. In part, we’ve become conditioned to think that because of compliant propaganda like that perpetrated by the Guardian.
Let’s have another look at the second offending paragraph:
Israeli military officials say the victims are legitimate targets who had entered unauthorised areas, engaged in militant activities or otherwise violated the truce.
These “legitimate targets” are Gazans, and the ‘unauthorised area’ in question is Gaza. This paragraph by itself is less offensive in that the Guardian is just reporting the Israeli take on it, but it becomes more offensive as part of the overall package.
The rest of the article is nowhere near as bad as this early section, but as long as the Guardian frames its work like this, it’s going to draw much deserved criticism:
@guardian are you seriously suggesting a 2 year old and a 3 year old were legit military targets who breaking the "ceasefire"? https://t.co/09qjeZ6HL6
— #ReadyForTheRevolution (@allibee87) March 16, 2025
Absolutely fantastic journalism from @guardian, here 🙃 pic.twitter.com/WRqt75McCk
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) March 16, 2025
It’s not the only issue that people are criticising the Guardian for either:
Did you know?
BBC and Guardian editors held private meetings with an Israeli general one month into the Gaza genocide.
Watch how we exposed this story👇https://t.co/MhNwNAdQWn
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 15, 2025
Journalism outside the corporate mainstream
Hamza Yusuf is a British Palestinian journalist with bylines at Declassified UK, Middle East Eye, New Internationalist, 972, Dazed, and Mondoweiss. This is Yusuf’s first foray into criticising the Guardian, as this video for Declassified shows:
A Guardian journalist revealed to me the depth of pro-Israel bias in the newsroom:
“If Haaretz can use terms like ethnic cleansing and genocide, why can’t we— a paper that claims to be a bastion of journalism?”
Watch the full video for @declassifiedUK https://t.co/nlx6lg5EIR pic.twitter.com/74Da0ltfxY
— Hamza Yusuf (@Hamza_a96) March 6, 2025
In the video, Yusuf says:
The journalists that we spoke to at The Guardian firstly pointed to a really comprehensive spreadsheet, which they’ve logged and documented instances of The Guardian’s bias, whether it’s mis-reporting, whether it’s centring Israeli narratives, whether it’s not challenging Israeli spokespeople.
And what was interesting is that they said they come up against a stubborn leadership. They said, well, look at the words like ‘ethnic cleansing’ or phrases like ‘genocide’, and you look at a newspaper in Israel like Haaretz, a liberal Zionist newspaper, which effectively suffers from censorship as well in Israel, and yet it’s able to consistently use the words ‘ethnic cleansing’ in its coverage, and yet The Guardian can’t.
So as as they said, you know, in their words, this is a… newspaper that is supposed to be the bastion of of of journalism. It’s supposed to be independent, progressive, and to set the standard by ultimately not doing that, and to which they concluded that we would know the foreign desk of the Guardian followed the British establishment line anyway. And I think that was revealing.
It’s something that – almost an illusion has been shattered.
You can watch the full video at YouTube, and you can support Declassified here:
False narrative – not least from the Guardian
On 15 February 2024, Yusuf published a piece for Tribune titled This Is the West’s Genocide Too, in which he wrote:
On Sunday night, the Israeli army carried out a series of intensive strikes in multiple locations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Political commentators referred to the strikes as ‘diversion’ tactics, intended to cover a rescue operation that reportedly brought two Israeli hostages home.
For Palestinians, the experience was one that has become familiar: a ‘night full of horror’. More than 100 people were killed, including entire families. Journalists were once again hit: Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Abu Omar was forced to have his right leg amputated, adding to what has already been dubbed an ‘amputee crisis’ in the enclave.
This was just the precursor. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have set their sights on a full-blown invasion of Rafah. The plans are justified by robotic recitations about the need to eradicate Hamas, a call now synonymous with the constant waves of horrific violence being unleashed against Gaza’s civilian population.
It’s over a year later and Israel is still bombing Gaza. What’s changed is that the media has gone from telling us it isn’t a genocide to telling us it isn’t even war.
Featured image via WAFA – Wikimedia
