12 May 2021

Sheikh Jarrah: Clashes, scuffles, conflict - western media's euphemisms for Israel's violence

 Middle East Eye

Let’s imagine some creative wartime reporting: "On April 26, 1937, the inhabitants of the Basque town of Guernica 'clashed' with German warplanes dropping high explosives and incendiary bombs. The town was pulverised in the course of the 'scuffle', and up to 1600 people perished".

Obviously, the above lines would never be written by any non-delusional person, since the nature of the power relationship between human bodies on the one hand and bomb-spewing airborne monstrosities on the other is quite clear.

Yet, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - itself a euphemism for Israel’s forever war on Palestinians - the Western corporate media never miss a chance to report blatantly one-sided brutality as "clashes" and "scuffles".

Take, for example, the Great March of Return, the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that began in the Gaza Strip in March 2018. According to the United Nations, the Israeli military killed 214 Palestinians - 46 of them children - in the context of the Great March, and injured more than 36,100. “During the same period,” by contrast, “one Israeli soldier was killed and seven others were injured.”

The media takeaway from the same event: there were "clashes". READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.