Israel Getting 'Free Pass'

As violence rages between Israel and Gaza, Western media are being profoundly unfair to Palestinians, writes Richard Falk in al-Jazeera. As evidence, he offers up this New York Times front page headline: "Rockets Target Jerusalem; Israel Girds for Gaza Invasion." That and other depictions portray Hamas as the aggressor Israel must protect itself against—and that's "a stunningly Orwellian re-phrasing of reality," Falk writes. Yes, rockets from Gaza have fallen inside Israel, but the media is ignoring Israel's "total military dominance" and, thus, its increased capacity to "inflict damage and suffering."

The truth is that, Israeli claims to the contrary, "Gaza remains occupied and essentially helpless," Falk writes. While he decries Hamas' use of rockets, he attributes it to Gaza's "cries of help that [the] world has ignored at its peril for decades. These are survival screams!" Yet somehow, this "grotesque reality passes under the radar screens of world conscience because of the geopolitical shield behind which Israel is given a free pass to do whatever it wishes," he concludes. "Such a circumstance is morally unendurable, and should be politically unacceptable." Click to read his extensive full column. (More Israel stories.)