Covering for atrocities: Western media’s role in whitewashes Israel’s war crimes in Gaza

Bret Louis Stephens, a columnist for The New York Times, recently attempted to justify a unique and horrific crime with an equally unique and horrific approach to journalism.

A review of Western media over the past two years — since the war against Gaza began — reveals a list of outlets working to justify and whitewash the regime’s atrocities.

According to Al Jazeera, the Zionist regime undoubtedly owes a debt to Bret Stephens, who published his latest outrageous opinion piece in the American daily titled: “No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza.”

Never mind that numerous international bodies — from various UN agencies to Amnesty International — have determined that this is precisely what Israel is doing. These are media outlets that avoid using the “G-word” (genocide) at all costs — but not Stephens. He knows better, and he’s here to explain why.

In the very first paragraph of his piece — which should arguably come with a health warning for readers prone to aneurysms — Stephens asks: If Israel’s intentions and actions truly amount to genocide, if they are so malevolent as to aim for the destruction of Gazans, then why hasn’t it been more systematic and deadlier?

Yet, the near-total destruction of much of Gaza — through systematic bombing of homes, hospitals, schools, and virtually every bombable structure — appears quite methodical.

As for not being “deadly enough,” Stephens points to the official Palestinian death toll of nearly 60,000 within less than two years and wonders why there haven’t been “hundreds of thousands of deaths,” if this were really genocide.

He proceeds to ask: Why isn’t the death toll higher? That’s the first question anti-Israel genocide activists need to answer.

In doing so, he opens himself up to questions he must answer: Why does he think the mass killing of 60,000 people isn’t a big deal? As of November 2024, Israel had already slaughtered at least 17,400 children in Gaza. But apparently, that still doesn’t qualify as “malevolent enough.”

Moreover, according to a study published over a year ago in The Lancet medical journal, the actual number of deaths in Gaza may have exceeded 186,000. So, what would it take to meet Stephens’s threshold of “hundreds of thousands”?

Rather than waiting for an answer from “anti-Israel genocide groups,” Stephens offers his own, claiming that “Israel is clearly not committing genocide.” He cites the UN’s definition of genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” — and argues, “I’ve seen no evidence that Israel intends to deliberately kill Gaza’s civilians.”

This claim is as absurd as saying there’s no evidence that poultry slaughterhouses intend to kill chickens. You don’t kill 17,400 children in 13 months by accident — unless you are deliberately targeting civilians and bombing hospitals and ambulances.

But genocide isn’t committed by bombs alone. Forced starvation is also genocide. And here, Stephens must answer how the deliberate deprivation of food and water — essential for the survival of over two million people — doesn’t reflect an “intent to destroy” that population.

Health officials in Gaza have recently reported increasing deaths, including of children, due to hunger and malnutrition — and the numbers are rising daily.

According to reports, since the end of May, over 1,000 Palestinians have been massacred while trying to obtain food from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — a malicious group supported by Israel and the U.S. Not only does it corral desperate Palestinians into single locations for easier targeting by Israeli forces, it also helps advance the U.S.-backed Israeli agenda of forcibly removing the remaining Palestinian population.

While Stephens has no qualms mentioning the “chaotic food distribution system” in Gaza, he insists that deceptive humanitarian schemes, trigger-happy soldiers, “misfired” attacks, and revenge-driven Israeli politicians do not constitute genocide.

Despite all this, Stephens refuses to use the word “genocide” for Gaza, and even more staunchly avoids acknowledging that the Zionist regime has, from its very inception, been a genocidal project.

Zionist leaders, even before the establishment of Israel in 1948, which led to the mass killings, destruction of hundreds of villages, and displacement of around three-quarters of a million Palestinians, fully understood the necessity of removing the indigenous majority population.

Since then, Israel has been and continues to be a genocidal regime — seeking to erase the Palestinian people both physically and conceptually. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously claimed, “There are no Palestinians,” reflecting that intent.

In truth, Israel’s very existence as a settler-colonial Zionist state is based on the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

Stephens, in his defense, complains about the alleged overuse of the word genocide. The Israeli military has long enjoyed the support of The New York Times and other American corporate media, who go to great lengths to portray Israeli crimes as acts of “self-defense.” But as Israel continues to commit a uniquely horrific crime in Gaza with the full backing of a global superpower, Stephens’s genocide journalism reaches new, grotesque heights.