A relative mourns Palestinian journalist Akram Al-Shafi'i in January, after he was killed in an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza strip.
Ten months into its war on Gaza, Israel has killed well over 100 Palestinian journalists – by some counts, up to 160. It’s the largest recorded number of journalists killed in any war. And in many cases, the U.S. provided the murder weapons.
Through both indiscriminate bombing and deliberate targeting of journalists, Israel has used U.S.-supplied weapons to suppress media coverage of the ongoing war. Along with Israel’s refusal to let international press into Gaza, the killings (not to mention injuries and detainments) leave the public to rely on a shrinking number of journalists who continue to place their lives on the line to report their reality.
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This week, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) joined 140 press freedom organizations, journalists and news outlets in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken — led by Defending Rights & Dissent, Courage Foundation and RootsAction — urging the U.S. to immediately cease sending weapons to Israel due to its continued killings of journalists.
When journalism is depleted by bombs, bullets, and censorship, the horrors of war can be more easily concealed, placing other civilians’ lives at risk.
The Biden administration may employ harsher rhetoric when discussing Israel than it did a few months ago, but as long as it unconditionally provides weapons and funding it is entirely complicit in Israel’s violations of international law.
The complicity runs deeper than providing Israel with weapons to kill dozens of journalists and intimidate the ones that survive. When Israel raided and banned Al Jazeera, one of the few international outlets providing continuous coverage of the war, and raided The Associated Press, the White House did no more than call the moves “concerning” and pledge its support to the journalists.
Empty words are no longer enough. We signed the letter because the time for half measures is over. Soft pressure simply isn’t working.
To protect lives, the press, and the public’s right to know, it’s time for the U.S. to immediately stop any and all military support and transfer of war materials to be used in furtherance of what the letter calls “one of the gravest affronts to press freedom today.” This isn’t just about journalists — their lives aren’t more important than anyone else’s. But when journalism is depleted by bombs, bullets, and censorship, the horrors of war can be more easily concealed, placing other civilians’ lives at risk.
The State Department is prohibited by the Leahy Law from providing military assistance to violators of human rights. Just this week, the U.S. violated its own laws again by approving the sale of $20 billion in military equipment to Israel, despite its targeting of journalists and other war crimes.
This unconditional and unacceptable support to Israel has to end, especially after it admitted earlier this month to deliberately killing two journalists who were wearing press identifiers, sloppily accusing them of ties to Hamas to justify its actions. News coverage of the killings has been scarce, showing that Israel’s censorship campaign is succeeding.
The U.S. must wake up and see Israel’s targeting of the press as what it is — an effort to keep all eyes anywhere but on Israel. Continuing to support that effort is irreconcilable with the United States’ professed values as a democratic country that constitutionally safeguards free speech.
The full letter is available here and embedded below.