Thread by @SanaSaeed

Let's talk about this New Yorker piece on "Hamas Propaganda" which actually serves Israeli propaganda against journalists in Gaza as well as the only news outlets with dedicated on-the-ground correspondents & coverage of Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.

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I'll be focusing on specific parts that stood out.

(disclosure: I work for Al Jazeera, views here are my own)

The piece comes at a time where US news media has non-stop been funneling direct Israeli propaganda, justifying the slaughter of 2.2 million Palestinians, into American households. For the authors & @NewYorker that's not relevant for a US magazine.

Want to note here that Kirkpatrick was the former NYT Cairo Bureau Chief - where all great journalist stories begin. Adam Rasgon is a former Times of Israel & Jerusalem Post reporter on "Palestinian Affairs".

Off to a great start in lessons in propaganda.

This piece is about how Arabic-language channels are indirectly & directly do Hamas propaganda. Arabic-language channels - like Al Jazeera Arabic - are those who 1. know the language, 2. have correspondents on the ground, 3. come from a non-US/Israel foreign policy vantage point

Israel has killed 27 journalists since Oct 7 (CPJ), threatened & injured others, killed families of Al Jazeera journalists. Former Israeli PM Yair Lapid said "objective media serves Hamas."

So, what function does this @NewYorker article serve in that context?

There's a very cautionary tone used here to highlight AJ's coverage of Israeli crimes in Gaza: painted as cynical, part & parcel of being basically a propaganda wing for Hamas. It also pathologizes editorializing by Arab journalists - civilized US reporters don't do that, right?

The most insidious part of this section is what not only reads as a justification of the targeting of AJ Gaza Bureau Chief Dahdouh's family again & again but also directly positions him (just like his network Al Jazeera) as a propagandist for Hamas and thus a "terrorist" group.

This is egregious - a journalist covering the genocide of his own people, his own family, is crying over his murdered son and his words (which were dripping in pain if you understand Arabic or, idk, view Arabs as human) are presented as nefarious, aligned w/Hamas propaganda.

US journalists are shocked that other journalists are choosing to focus on the 10,000 Palestinians killed in three weeks of unprecedented Israeli airstrikes versus a single day of violence.

Reporting on the carnage in Gaza is, again, presented as Hamas propaganda.

So both a guy who worked out of Cairo for years and a guy who lists fluency in Arabic & covered "Palestinian affairs" for Israeli newsrooms assert that only Palestinian groups use "martyrs" for the dead.

Interesting how Al Arabiya's background politics aren't considered here.

What also isn't considered here, at all, is that people around the world are seeing with their own eyes children whose skin has been burned to the bone by Israeli white phosphorus, entire refugee camps incinerated - no, those Arabs & Muslims are so susceptible to propaganda!

The gross anti-Muslim/Arab assumptions here, that are the foundation of this piece, are exhausting but also underscore how US journalists are virulently disposed toward dehumanizing Palestinians while clutching to their journalistic sanctimony.

This article by @Newyorker is a gross, negligent piece of anti-Palestinian propaganda that renders any & all coverage - in fact, the *only* coverage - of Israeli war cries & Palestinian suffering as "propaganda".

It also is journalistically embarrassing to publish a piece like this - those silly, barbaric Arabs! - when we have US news media lockstep with the IDF: not questioning a single claim made by the gov't carrying out mass starvation & bombardment of 2.2 million people.

This piece - and I hope you hear this @ddk_nyc @adamrasgon - justifies the targeting & killing of journalists by Israel: both right now in Gaza, the West Bank & before, such as Shireen Abu Akleh.

When everything and everyone is Hamas, then everything and everyone is a target.

@ddk_nyc @adamrasgon Israel is slaughtering our colleagues' families and @NewYorker publishes absolutely vile propaganda justifying their targeting. We will not forget your complicity.

https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1719445986865500229

And I know that I - like my colleagues - will be dismissed because I am Muslim, because I work for Al Jazeera. We know how we are seen, even when our work is respected, awarded & duplicated in this industry. But I’d rather be dismissed than a part of those complicit in genocide.